The University of Michigan’s chapter of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), a national student libertarian group with multiple campus chapters (disclosure: your correspondent is affiliated with them at his school), won a $14,000 settlement from the school after filing a discrimination lawsuit in 2013.

The lawsuit was brought against the school for denying YAL’s $1,000 funding request to feature an anti-affirmative action speaker, Jennifer Gratz.

Gratz’s 2003 lawsuit against U. Michigan took down points-based admissions policy that automatically allotted black applicants more points towards possible acceptance. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court upheld Michigan’s ban on affirmative action policies in its higher education institutions.

Jeremy Allen of MLive has the story:

University of Michigan reaches settlement with student group following discrimination lawsuit

The University of Michigan paid $14,000 to a student organization to settle a Nov. 2013 lawsuit that alleged it was improperly denied funding for an event featuring a prominent opponent of affirmative action.

The U-M student group Young Americans for Liberty filed the suit after the school turned down an application requesting $1,000 in funding from student fees to pay for a speaking engagement by Jennifer Gratz on affirmative action.

Gratz won a high-profile lawsuit against the university in 2003, which put an end to U-M’s point-based undergraduate admission system that automatically gave black students points based on their race. She also was one of the organizers behind the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which in 2006 won voter approval for Proposal 2, which banned affirmative action in college admissions and state hiring practices.

The university turned down the request, saying that such funding cannot be granted for political events, the lawsuit alleges. An appeal of the funding denial was submitted and denied on Dec. 3 by the SOFC, the lawsuit alleged.

The Student Organization Funding Commission at the University gives student organizations about $300,000 every year from mandatory student fees in order to host events.

The lawsuit claimed that although the university has a policy prohibiting funding for political and religious activities of student organizations, the Student Organization Funding Commission has provided such funding to other groups.