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In what some affirmative action-supporters are hailing as a huge victory, a divided Supreme Court ruled that universities can give minority applicants an edge in the admittance process – within certain limits.

The decision came from two separate rulings involving the University of Michigan, which has been embroiled in an affirmative action lawsuit since 1997. The university uses a point system to determine admissions criteria in its College of Literature, Science and the Arts, with minority applicants receiving bonus points.

The Supreme Court overturned Michigan’s specific point system criteria with a vote of 6-3, but upheld a different program at the university’s law school that considers race to a lesser degree.

The law school program was upheld by a tight vote of 5-4. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was the swing vote, siding with the more liberal justices.

The ruling affects tax-supported schools, such as private schools and other institutions, that have been trying to simultaneously raise minority enrollment and avoid violating the Constitution’s guarantee against discrimination.

O’Connor, citing the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision of 1951 which desegregated schools, said all individuals, regardless of ethnicity, are entitled to an education, which in turn makes them better citizens.

“Effective participation by members of all racial and ethnic groups in the civic life of our nation is essential if the dream of one nation, indivisible, is to be realized,” she wrote for the majority opinion in the law school decision.

The university had defended its law school program, saying it wished to achieve a “critical mass” of minority students to facilitate interaction between students from different backgrounds.

Michigan also said that it only admits academically qualified students into its program, regardless of race.

Not all the justices believed the university’s defense. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who wrote the dissenting opinion for the law school case, dismissed the claims of critical mass as a “veil” that hid a “naked effort to achieve racial balancing.”

In its other decision, the court determined that Michigan’s 150-point index for screening applicants, which gave an automatic 20 points to minority applicants, was not the proper way to achieve racial diversity.

Rehnquist, who wrote the majority opinion for the case, said the points policy was “not narrowly tailored to achieve the interest in educational diversity” that Michigan claimed to justify its system.

The controversy at Michigan was sparked by two white students of good academic standing who were both denied admittance to the university. Though both students have since graduated from other colleges, their case has received strong support from conservative legal groups, some law professors, and affirmative action opponents.

The Bush administration sided with the students but did not call for an end to affirmative action.

Despite the ruling on the undergraduate system, affirmative action-supporters have lauded the decision as a landmark triumph defending affirmative action’s core integrity, and as a decision with tremendous implications for the rest of the nation.

Ronald Cruz, a graduate student of education at UC Berkeley and a proponent of affirmative action who was in Michigan for the ruling, called the decision a “stunning victory” and said it would provide a catalyst for a nationwide mobilization defending affirmative action.

“We are launching a campaign to reverse the attack on affirmative action and to realize the full promise of Brown v. Board of Education,” he said. “And I’m confident we can win.”

Cruz is also an organizer with the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary.

University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman called the decision “a resounding affirmation that will be heard across the land from our college classrooms to our corporate boardrooms.”

The Supreme Court last ruled on affirmative action in higher education in 1978, when the court banned the use of racial quotas at the University of California at Davis, but left open other routes for universities to achieve diversity.

Affirmative action opponents had hoped the Supreme Court – which many consider to be more conservative than it was in 1978 – would use the Michigan case as an opportunity to ban the consideration of race in other institutions as well.

Instead, the decision seems to have set opponents back on their heels.

UC Regent Ward Connerly, a strong opponent of affirmative action, said the two court decisions were confusing and only laid the groundwork for more uncertainty regarding the uses of affirmative action.

“These conflicting decisions consign our nation to another generation of litigation and agony about the constitutionally permissible uses of ‘race,’” he said in a statement issued on behalf of the American Civil Rights Institute, which opposes affirmative action.

Connerly is also one of the sponsors of the Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color, or National Origin initiative, which would prohibit the state from collecting data on state employees or students at California state institutions. CRECNO will be on the March 2004 ballot.

It is not clear how much the decision will affect California, where Proposition 209 – which prohibits the consideration of race as a factor in hiring and admitting individuals to state institutions – is still in effect.

However, UCLA law Professor Jerry Kang said that just as Proposition 209 was passed by a vote, it can also be struck down by vote, a possibility he said may have increased “substantially” because of the Michigan decision.

Kang also said the message some Californians may take from the decision is that “a well-designed affirmative action program does not violate anyone’s equal protection rights.”

Cruz said with this new ruling, Proposition 209 now puts California out of step with the rest of the nation in terms of diversity.

“Look at Los Angeles. Los Angeles is a de facto segregated city. It’s a majority Latino population, but the vast majority of them are denied the opportunity to an education,” he said.

With reports from Daily Bruin wire services.