After marching in silence, then listening to the Voices of GVSU gospel choir, Lani Guinier said both events represent the life of Martin Luther King Jr.
"Hearing the Voices in unison and marching in silence encourages us to reflect," she told an audience in the Fieldhouse on January 15. "Both actions represent what Dr. King represents, that he's not merely a dreamer, but an activist."
Guinier, professor of law at Harvard Law School, was the keynote speaker at GVSU's Martin Luther King Celebration and she also spoke at an evening event at Grand Rapids Community College. In 1998, Guinier was the first black woman to be appointed to a tenured position at Harvard Law. Previously, she had taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, directed the NAACP's voting rights project and served the Carter administration in the Civil Rights Division.
Guinier recounted the story of the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and said it could parallel Michigan's passage of Proposal 2 in November. During that year-long boycott, Guinier said King and other organizers saw their goals evolve from initial objectives of demanding courtesy from bus drivers. At the end of the boycott, 50,000 blacks stayed off the buses in Montgomery for more than a year. They also organized transportation and bought a fleet of cars.
"I think about that in terms of affirmative action," Guinier said. "And I think of affirmative action as a tactic and not a goal.
"The vote on Proposal 2 was a setback ... a temporary setback."
She urged the audience of students, faculty and staff members to advocate for higher education admissions policies that are not so tied to standardized test scores.
"We need to expand public education so it's not so scarce," she said. "We need to reconnect the mission of higher education to train a representative group of citizen leaders."
