Despite the precedent established in the "University of California Board of Regents v. Bakke," that race may be used as a factor in admissions policies at state institutions of higher education, state and federal court decisions were divided over whether the use of race in admissions decisions was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and how such policies should be designed and implemented. In the absence of a more recent Supreme Court decision affirming the Bakke decision, and without a uniform standard of what an acceptable affirmative action policy looked like, courts were providing inconsistent signals to policymakers concerning what constituted an acceptable policy design and whether such policies violated individual rights. In "Gratz v. Bollinger" and "Grutter v. Bollinger," the U.S. Supreme Court, affirmed that race-based affirmative action policies were not a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that such policies survive strict scrutiny because obtaining a diverse student body is a compelling purpose for establishing such policy. The purpose of this study was to conduct an examination of the effects of the "Gratz v. Bollinger" and "Grutter v. Bollinger" decisions regarding affirmative action policies at highly selective public institutions of higher education. The study highlighted policy trends to determine the ideology behind these policies. The research summarized the U.S. Supreme Court Equal Protection standards with respect to the implementation and types of race-based affirmative action policies within higher education. A review of litigation was presented pertaining to race-based affirmative action policies since the Bakke decision that led up to the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in "Gratz" and "Grutter" and an extensive evaluation of the "Gratz" and "Grutter" decisions was completed. The study reviewed public policy pertaining to race-based affirmative action since the "Gratz" and "Grutter" decisions to determine that these most recent decisions have not had a significant impact on this public policy. These issues were analyzed using traditional legal research methods and the significance of this research was determined using a comparative analysis of current policy trends since the "Gratz" and "Grutter" decisions. (Full text of this dissertation may be available via the University of Florida Libraries web site. Please check http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/etd.html) [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.