Gerald Ford, Willis Ward and Sandra Day O'Connor

Here's your Michigan football connection to Sandra Day O'Connor, the former Supreme Court Justice who passed away today. Back in 1999, U-M's progressive affirmative action policy became the subject of two federal lawsuits, one of which was Grutter vs. Bollinger. U-M President Lee Bollinger was looking for a high-profile Republican who would be willing to support the school's position and he found one in former President Gerald Ford.

Ford wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in support of affirmative action and he based his entire argument around the story of his friend and former Michigan teammate, Willis Ward, who was benched against Georgia Tech in 1934. Ford later supported a very influential brief which was filed in the case by a number of military generals, including Norman Schwarzkopf.

When the case went to the Supreme Court in 2003, it was decided on a 5-4 vote in favor of Michigan's position and the swing vote was cast by Justice O'Connor, who also authored the opinion. Court observers said that Ford's telling of the Willis Ward story and his support of the generals' brief helped sway her opinion.

The ruling was mostly nullified by the Supreme Court earlier this year in two related cases, but it stood for 20 years thanks to a lesson learned in the Big House.