So, I am in D.C. this weekend talking to two JD students at Michigan who seem very knowledgable about law admissions and we begin discussing affirmative action and our respective heritages. I explain, "well, you know my father's side of the family has some Cherokee influence." To be specific my great great great grandmother was full blooded Cherokee. They freak out and say "you mean you didn't check the box?!" They explain that the cut off for such ethnicity elections is a 1/16ths rule, here satisfied for me. And since there is dearth of Native American representation, the claim I could "get in anywhere."

Is this true?

I am currently a JD student at a T4 school. I would like to apply for an LLM upon working for a couple of years.

Michigan has been subject to a lot of litigation wrt Affirmative action (Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger). To sum the SC ruling in Grutter, the Court cannot provide automatic benefit but to adopt a 'plus one factor' for minorities. This means that altho you dont get a quota benefit (like in some other countries like India), it can provide an advantage to the minorities in situations of equally qualified candidates.
So, it couldnt hurt......

Michigan has been subject to a lot of litigation wrt Affirmative action (Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger). To sum the SC ruling in Grutter, the Court cannot provide automatic benefit but to adopt a 'plus one factor' for minorities. This means that altho you dont get a quota benefit (like in some other countries like India), it can provide an advantage to the minorities in situations of equally qualified candidates.
So, it couldnt hurt......