(NNPA)�A Michigan federal judge�s call for an end to all race-based admissions policies at the state university�s law school may signal the end of higher education�s quest for racial diversity through affirmative action, Black leaders and analysts said.

U.S. District Judge Bernard A. Friedman�s March 27 ruling has effectively stopped the University of Michigan Law School practice of using race as one factor for accepting students to achieve diversity at the institution.

Critics have complained that the university accepts non-white students with lower test scores and grades than whites. The Center for Individual Rights brought the suit on behalf of Barbara Grutter, a white student, who said she was unfairly denied admission in 1997 because "minority" students with lesser qualifications received preferential treatment.

University of Michigan President Lee C. Bollinger counter-argued the decision "conflicts with settled Supreme Court law and the policies of virtually every selective university in the country for nearly 30 years. It rejects Justice Powell�s 1978 opinion in Bakke. It is also contrary to the December decisions of Judge Duggan regarding our undergraduate admissions and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the University of Washington case.

"Our policy is fully constitutional. I remain as confident today as I was in 1992 when our policy was adopted that pursuing educational excellence through diversity is a compelling governmental interest. Like Brown v. Board of Education, the Bakke decision has served our country and our educational institutions well. We must not abandon the course at this stage of our nation�s history," Mr. Bollinger said.

The Supreme Court may rule on race-based enrollment in about a year and bring the issue to a political and legal climax.

With the most recent ruling, Michigan joins universities in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and elsewhere who have been ordered by federal courts not to have race-linked admissions policies, reversing decades of racial integration attempts that were hard-won products of the civil rights movement.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who led a demonstration at the University of Michigan two days after the ruling, said, "University deans of admissions have always chosen from a variety of criteria: special talents, athletics, geography, legacies, music, science skills, and the ability to pay tuition. To consider everything in admissions but the source of American shame�race�is a shame."

Judge Friedman�s ruling is in direct contradiction with an earlier ruling supporting the school�s undergraduate affirmative action program. That decision, by U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Duggan, called the program constitutional.

The conflicting nature of the decisions is likely to lead to having a case argued before the Supreme Court. The current legal climate caused the University of Massachusetts and other universities to voluntarily demolish their own race-based criteria, fearing legal action.

"With such competing rulings, I am almost certain that this will end up in the Supreme Court and I�m not optimistic about the outcome," said George Curry, a political writer and former editor of now-defunct Emerge magazine.

If the high court were to hear such a case, it would be the first time it ruled on affirmative action as it related to higher education. But its recent actions may show some of the court�s logic.

The court recently reopened the affirmative action debate when it allowed a white contractor, Adarand Constructors, to challenge federal laws designating Black-owned and other non-white-owned companies as "disadvantaged" businesses.

These laws, which allowed Blacks and others to successfully compete for highly lucrative contracts for the first time, greatly helped build the Black middle class over the last three decades.

Political analyst and University of Maryland professor Dr. Ronald Walters noted the Adarand case, which is scheduled to be argued in the fall, could certainly become a factor in higher education admissions. "It appears that we are headed down the road to the end of affirmative action�at least as far as state institutions are concerned," he said.

(Final Call staff contributed to this report.)