COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON — In two long-awaited opinions Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that colleges can give minorities an edge when deciding who gets into a university, but only if they use race as one of many factors when considering applications.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court struck down the University of Michigan’s practice of awarding 20 extra “points” to minority undergraduate applicants, which helped boost their chances of getting into the elite Ann Arbor institution.

Such a point system violates the 14th amendment’s equal protection provisions because it “makes race a decisive factor for virtually every minimally qualified under-represented minority applicant,” wrote Chief Justice William Rehnquist for the majority.

But in a 5-4 decision, the court upheld the University of Michigan law school’s practice of considering race as one of many factors when reviewing applicants. Noting that diversity is a compelling state interest, the court said the law school’s program was a narrowly tailored way of ensuring diversity in the student body.

“The law school considers the various diversity qualifications of each applicant, including race, on a case-by-case basis,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote. “By contrast, the (university’s undergraduate department) relies on the (point system) to assign every underrepresented minority applicant the same, automatic 20-point bonus without consideration of the particular background, experiences, or qualities of each individual applicant.”

Joining Rehnquist in the undergraduate decision were Justices O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer. Dissenting were Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In the law-school opinion, O’Connor sided with the court’s more liberal justices — Stevens, Ginsburg, Souter and Breyer.

Cases brought by whites

Both cases were brought by white university applicants who claimed they were denied admission because the school gave special preference to minorities. The undergraduate case — Gratz v. Bollinger — was brought by Jennifer Gratz, an Oceanside resident who once lived close to the university and dreamed of studying medicine there.

In her dissent in the Gratz case, Ginsburg argued that point systems like those at the University of Michigan were designed to remedy years of discrimination that prevented minorities from studying at the nation’s more prestigious universities.

“We are not far distant from an overtly discriminatory past,” Ginsburg wrote. “The effects of centuries of law-sanctioned inequality remain painfully evident in our communities and schools.”

President Bush, who earlier this year called the University of Michigan affirmative action program “unconstitutional,” said Monday’s decision struck “a careful balance between the goal of campus diversity and the fundamental principle of equal treatment under the law.”

Many court observers viewed the rulings as an affirmation of the high court’s decision a generation ago in Bakke vs. Regents of the University of California. In the 1978 case — in which a white man claimed he was passed over in favor of less-qualified minorities for admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis — the court ruled that racial quotas are illegal, but that colleges could consider race as one factor in admitting students.

“It is a phenomenal victory, because the court unambiguously reaffirmed what the court said in Bakke, which is that having a diverse student body is a compelling government interest,” said John Payton, the lawyer representing the University of Michigan in the undergraduate case.

Payton’s adversaries, however, said the rulings supported their view that race-based admissions are becoming a thing of the past.

“The court did leave a small crack in the door for the use of race in admissions,” acknowledged Curt Levey of the Center for Individual Rights, which represented Gratz in the case. “But in no way did they say you have to use race in admissions. They said just the opposite: They expect schools to move toward race-neutral alternatives, such as California has been doing.”

The ruling has little practical impact in California because it does not overrule Proposition 209, the state law passed by voters in 1996 that prohibits considering race or gender in public education, hiring and contracting.

The 23-campus California State University system doesn’t use affirmative action and the nine-campus University of California dropped race as a factor in admissions in 1995. The UC system, however, has since created a percentage program, applauded by Bush because of its “race-neutral” practice of accepting the top 4 percent of graduates from each high school.

Some observers said Monday’s rulings will allow California colleges to give an edge to minority applicants, whose attendance at California’s more prestigious universities has slipped since the passage of Proposition 209.

“The decision gives a lot of leeway to universities to look at race, because the opinion says that is legitimate and constitutional,” said Maria Blanco, national senior counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “Now the question becomes, how do they do that?”

Dominguez Hills diverse

“It’s about as big a victory for race-conscious affirmative action as you were likely to get,” said Pamela Karlan, a law professor at Stanford University.

At California State University, Dominguez Hills — the South Bay’s only four-year public university — recruiting minorities is hardly a problem. The Carson campus is roughly one-third African-American, Latino and white with a smattering of Asian, Pacific Islander and Filipino students.

It is the most diverse campus in the West, and one of the most diverse campuses in the country — a true asset for students entering the work force, said Kathleen Walton, interim vice president for Dominguez Hills.

“There is a value added for our graduates of the experience of living and working on a regular basis with people very like them and unlike them,” she said.

Monday’s rulings raised questions about how much — and in what manner — schools can consider race when deciding who gets into what universities.

Experts predicted the decision would encourage admissions officials to use race in a general or subjective manner, but discourage them from assigning race a numeric value, much as Michigan did with a 20-point award system for minorities.

“This decision means that affirmative action programs will be allowed for the foreseeable future, as long as they are narrowly and carefully applied,” said Christopher Murray, a civil liberties attorney in New York.

While Monday’s high court ruling said public institutions may use some forms of affirmative action, it by no means requires them to do so.

No requirement to use

Ward Connerly, the UC regent who led the effort to drop the system’s old affirmative action programs and went on to chair the passage of Proposition 209, said visions of restoring public affirmative action in California are misguided.

“I am very, very certain that voters have not changed their minds on race preferences,” he said through a spokeswoman.