The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents announced last week that they would not be taking a position anytime soon in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases being taken to the Supreme Court in April.

The two Michigan cases will be presented to the Supreme Court April 1. During the hearings, justices will listen to one hour of arguments in the case of the undergraduate student followed by another hour of arguments in the other case regarding law school admissions. Final verdicts are due by the end of June.

This will be the first time the 1978 Supreme Court Bakke decision, which allowed for the use of race in admissions, will have been officially revisited. Currently, universities supporting Michigan’s policies are filing written briefs showing their support.

UW Regent Gerard Randall suggested filing a friend-of-the-court brief in support of affirmative action at the University of Michigan. However, after close review and discussion among the board it was decided to cease filing largely due to time constraints. The deadline for filing a brief in this case is February 18.

According to UW Regent Fred Mohs, after personally discussing the situation with Randall they both agreed that nothing would be gained from filing the brief.

In past years, the regents have supported affirmative action in admissions, said Mohs. However, he is personally against the use of race in admissions and believes that in many of the regents’ “heart of hearts” they do not support these policies either.

At UW, race is considered as one “plus factor” out of the many factors viewed prior to admitting a student. It is also strongly stressed by the Office of Admissions that race is just one factor and is not any more important than any of the other aspects considered.

Mohs, however, strongly believes race is stressed more than the Office of Admissions is willing to admit and also holds an extreme distaste for these policies.

“There is a significantly higher drop out rate among targeted minorities,” Mohs said. “I attribute half of it to lacking preparation and the other half to dealing with discomfort with the racial environment at UW, money troubles, etc.”

Mohs also believes that this can become somewhat wasteful for the university and extremely tragic for the individuals who could have succeeded elsewhere.

“No one [at UW] has any enthusiasm for bringing this up before the Michigan cases are decided,” Mohs said. “It will be a long process and a good process of deciding this case. The publicity is excellent.”

Even if it is decided that race cannot be used, universities will try to find other tricky ways to get around it, said Mohs.

“Institutions are pushing the envelope on the limit set by the Bakke cases now,” Mohs said. “They will push the envelope on the Michigan cases too.”

However, he is still in full support of ridding race-based admissions policies, a move he feels would be a step in the right direction.

“I’m convinced we would be doing good by eliminating this,” Mohs said. ” It is time for a change.”