"The timing on this is very unclear," Fitzsimmons says. "It could be that there will be another case in the near future, or it could be quite some time until a case emerges for the U.S. Supreme Court to review."

In the meantime, U-Texas has been forced to fundamentally alter the way it considers applications.

"If we didn't adhere to the opinion, we would be subject to punitive and regulatory damages," Yudof says. "The court would order--and put into effect--injunctions."

Schools who do not comply could have the courts take over their admissions processes completely, Yudof says.

Although the ruling was against a public institution, private schools are not exempt from the law. Current federal statutes stipulate that any university receiving federal money must abide by the Constitution and hence federal court rulings.

According to Julie M. Browning, director of admissions at Rice University in Houston, Rice has already removed all questions pertaining to race from its application.

Instituting new admissions processes is time-consuming and costly for an institution the size of U-Texas, Yudof says.

Private schools like Rice are often much better equipped to handle the new regulations than U-Texas because they have more comprehensive admissions procedures in the first place, Browning says.

"Ironically, like most highly-selective schools, we are best prepared to deal with change, because they are not formula-driven," Browning says. "We include a couple of essay questions designed to get at special experiences and talents."

In another irony of the current state of federal law, Browning says that while Rice is not allowed to use race at all in admissions, the federal government still requires it to release statistics about race.

According to Rudenstine, eliminating this contradiction in policy would be disastrous because if the government cannot keep statistics on race, it cannot prevent schools from discriminating against minorities.

Even so, Yudof says the ruling will dramatically injure the school's ability to maintain diversity in the student body because it is not playing by the same rules as the rest of the nation.

"Even when we are considering students who are clearly qualified by any standard, we cannot offer them the same [financial] support as those schools that are still governed by Bakke," Yudof says.

Browning says Rice, too, is unhappy with its predicament and would like a national ruling on the issue.

"We were very disappointed the Supreme Court didn't rule on the issue," Browning says. "We don't like the idea that the Fifth Circuit has one set rules and rest of the country has another."