claiming that the anti-preference initiative violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (in part because it bans only certain types of preferences), is preempted by federal civil rights laws (because it prevents universities from using the only effective technique they have at hand to integrate), and violates the First Amendment of public universities as recognized by Grutter "to determine their academic standards and to determine the criteria for admission to the university." The latter argument is especially interesting because if it emerged victorious it would, e.g., implicitly call for the reversal of the Bob Jones University and Grove City College cases, and more generally allow any public or private university to discriminate in any way so long as they could claim they were doing so for "academic" reasons. (Okay, for public universities there might be an argument that the 14th Amendment still prohibits invidious discrimination, but certainly private schools would henceforth have a First Amendment right to discriminate in admissions).

Another interesting aspect of the complaint is that all of the defendants opposed the MCRI, making one wonder if the court will allow intervenors who have an incentive to defend the law. A link to the complaint can be found on Bamn's website.