Respondents challenged that the LSA has just such an interest in the educational benefits that result from having a racially and ethnically diverse student body and that its program is narrowly tailored to serve that interest. The court ruled for the respondents as to the LSA's current admissions guidelines and granted them summary judgment in that respect. The court also held that the LSA's admissions guidelines for 1995 through 1998 operated as the functional equivalent of a quota running afoul of Justice Powell's Bakke opinion, and thus granted petitioners summary judgment with respect to respondents' admissions programs for those years (Gratz v Bollinger, (02-516) 539 U.S. 244, 2003). Affirmative action continues to be a topic of controversy in America's political and legal arenas. Bakke touched on the question, settling only the narrower issue of racial quotas in admissions to state supported schools and leaving later cases to test the propriety of affirmative action in other realms. In 2003 the Supreme Court reaffirmed the central beliefs in Justice Powell's opinion. In Gratz v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court upheld a flexible, race based admission program emphasizing diversity used by the University of Michigan's law school in Grutter v. Bollinger while striking down a quota based admission program used by Michigan's undergraduate school (Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 2009).

In the case of Grutter v. Bollinger, the question was whether the University of Michigan Law School's use of racial preferences in student admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Courts conclusion was no. In an opinion delivered by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Court held that the Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the Law School's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions...

The Court reasoned that, because the Law School conducted a highly individualized review of each applicant, that no acceptance or rejection was based automatically on a variable such as race and that this process ensures that all factors that may contribute to diversity are meaningfully considered alongside race (Grutter v. Bollinger, n.d.).
The feeling is that race-based affirmative action in university admissions was given a green light by the Supreme Court in 2003. The justices were mindful thought to tether them to race-neutral alternatives. It's now up to the courts to put some teeth into their opinion (Blum, 2009)

References

Blum, Edward. (2009). Deciphering Grutter V. Bollinger. Retrieved November 11, 2009, from Web site:

http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2009/09/by_edward_blum_as_the.html

Equal protection. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2009, from Cornell University Law School

Web site: http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/Equal_protection

Gratz v Bollinger, (02-516) 539 U.S. 244 (2003). Retrieved November 11, 2009, from Web site:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-516.ZS.html

Grutter v. Bollinger. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2009, from OYEZ Web site:

http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2002/2002_02_241/

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978). Retrieved November 11,

2009, from Web site: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/bakke.html

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. (2009). Retrieved November 11, 2009, from Answers.com Web site: http://www.answers.com/topic/regents-of-the-university-of-california-v-bakke