The University of Michigan's race-conscious admissions policies to be heard by the US Supreme Court on April 1, 2003 is a hot topic and may very well become the defining fate of affirmative action. Is the consideration of race permissible in a University admissions process? President Bush says "No" to Michigan's policy, but "heavy hitters" in support of the policy are the nation's top private universities such as Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and MIT; dozens of Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, Intel, Boeing, Lucent Technologies, General Motors, IBM, Proctor & Gamble, Eastman Kodak, American Airlines; Secretary of State Colon Powell, the American Bar Association and over 100 members of Congress. The "battle is on" over affirmative action.

Like anti-affirmative action Prop 209 proponent, Ward Connerly, opposing affirmative action, President Bush is also an "affirmative action baby." Rejected by St. John High School in Houston, he was accepted at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. because his father was a graduate and it wanted a Texan to diversify a student body heavily from the Northeast. He got into Yale University with C's and SAT scores that were far below the Yale median, because his father was a prominent Yale alumnus and his grandfather was a Yale trustee. Despite a "C" average at Yale, he was admitted to the Harvard Business School. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times writes, "Instead of mocking Mr. Bush for hypocrisy, though, we should focus on something else: The affirmative action succeeded."

Then the argument becomes that if one can become President of the U.S. with a "C" average and low SAT scores while attending the best schools, then who is to say that the so called "brightest" make the best citizens. Oprah Winfrey just joined Bob Johnson and Donald Watkins as America's Black billionaires, again substantiating that affirmative action works. Following, if other factors must be considered, then why not a goal based on the taxpayers who are paying for these public universities, such as the 50% minority population of the State of California.

The critical issue is that 50 years after the 1954 US Supreme Court School Decision, American education is still separate and still unequal. According to a new study by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, Black and Latino students are now more isolated from their white counterparts than they were three decades ago (before court-ordered busing). Inferior schools lead to inferior college preparation. Efforts to replace affirmative action at public universities in California, Florida and by President Bush in Texas based on the top percentage of students from each high school are flawed, have fallen far short of modest goals and depend on segregated high schools to be successful. Today, there is no replacement for affirmative action.