The last several years have seen renewed debate over the role that race plays in higher education--a debate over "affirmative action." The report first considers "affirmative action" in its original sense: the "mandatory" race-conscious measures that the federal courts have imposed on "de jure" segregated public university systems. This report explains that the federal courts have come to subject voluntary "affirmative action" policies to a particularly searching form of review, known today as strict scrutiny. They have so far upheld those policies under a single theory: that the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body uniquely justify some consideration of race when deciding how to assemble an incoming class. To rely on that diversity rationale, however, the Court now requires universities to articulate in concrete and precise terms what their diversity-related goals are, and why they have chosen those goals in particular. This report concludes by discussing the role that Title VI plays in ensuring equal protection in higher education, both public and private, including several avenues for congressional action under the Act.