The Supreme Court is taking up affirmative action at colleges and universities for the sixth time in 50 years. In that litany, an early case was the University of California vs. Bakke. Bakke complained about being denied admission to the university's medical school because seats were guaranteed for minority applicants, thus barring the door to him…

Some of the nation's most prominent colleges and universities have abandoned their affirmativeaction-based admission policies and adopted race-neutral affirmative action as a result of twolawsuits against the University of Michigan, which threaten the availability of undergraduate andgraduate program access to applicants of color. In this article,…

What explains the rise of race-conscious affirmative action policies in undergraduate admissions? The dominant theory posits that adoption of such policies was precipitated by urban and campus unrest in the North during the late 1960s. Based on primary research in a sample of 17 selective schools, we find limited support for the dominant theory.…