Charles Daye, a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, focused the largest part of his discussion on his work with the Educational Diversity Project. The program is a study on-going at UNC-Chapel Hill that is looking at diversity and law schools. According to the study?s Web site, the program conducted a ?survey assessing diversity in multiple domains was administered to over 8,000 incoming students from 68 law schools in the United States.? Daye was joined by Abigail Panter, who discussed the methodology.
Daye argued that diversity, specifically racial diversity, is ?fundamentally about justice.? He said, ?If we lived in an ideal world we would not need to have this discussion.? Daye also touched on the Grutter case, as well as Bakke in making his points, both of which he argued supported a justice principle of racial diversity in education. In Bakke, even though the case limited affirmative action, Justice Lewis Powell wrote in his concuring opinion that diversity served an interest to the state. Affirmative action proponents saw Powel’s statement in the case as a victory.
