BOSTON
The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Equal Opportunity has asked Massachusetts’s public colleges and universities to supply detailed information about their admission policies. The center was instrumental in advancing Proposition 209 in California, and Initiative 200 in Washington. It also represented the plaintiffs in the Hopwood case in Texas. Headed by Linda Chavez, the director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights under President Reagan, the center is a vocal affirmative-action critic. It has studied seven university systems since 1996 — including state schools in California, Washington, Colorado, North Carolina, and Michigan, as well as the U.S. service academies at West Point and Annapolis. In virtually all of the cases, the center claimed that the institutions — particularly the flagship campuses — gave admissions preference to minority applicants. July 14, 2007