The application of constitutional principles of desegregation, derived from the context of primary and secondary education, to the postsecondary education setting, is addressed in the second of eight reports from the Postsecondary Desegregation Project at Vanderbilt University. The role of the U.S. Department of Education in enforcing the nondiscrimination provisions of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is also examined. Attention is directed to the major Supreme Court desegregation decisions, and the controlling principles of liability in non-southern contexts are identified. A rationale to explain the Court's approach to the problem of remedying the effects of governmentally imposed segregation is developed, and postsecondary desegregation cases that have arisen in the states of Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia are considered. While the case law with respect to desegregation of public primary and secondary schools is rather well developed, case law with respect to desegregation of postsecondary education is rather sparse. The development of the equal protection doctrine in higher education and the federal role in assuring equality of educational opportunity under Title VI and under new program authorizations are analyzed. The three most prominent desegregation cases, which came before the courts in Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia, involved similar factual situations: the proposed construction or expansion of an identifiably white institution within the geographical zone of competition of an existing predominantly black institution. In all three cases the courts found that dual systems had not been fully dismantled. Federal affirmative action possibilities under properly constructed new legislation authorization (Board of Education v. Harris and Fullilove v. Klutznick) is also discussed. (SW)