The Uncertain Future

Harvard officials say the possibility that a ruling like Hopwood could come into effect for the whole nation would be disastrous to the school's philosophy of providing diversity in education.

"It would be a very damaging judgment," Rudenstine says. "To have schools not have flexibility in admissions is very damaging."

But Rudenstine says that because of the complex nature of Harvard's admissions system, it would be difficult for such a judgment to alter that process.

Even if the government flatly says that admissions cannot take race into account, as it has in the Fifth Circuit, Rudenstine says, the question of what it means to consider race is very ambiguous.

"Should we blindfold ourselves?" Rudenstine asks. "If we're interviewing a Russian of Vietnamese student without a great command of the English language, are we going to say we didn't notice? Are we going to say, 'Sorry, don't tell me anything about the person?'"

Fitzsimmons says many admissions offices have already designed strategies to circumvent the kind of restrictions in effect in the Fifth Circuit.

"Schools will look at involvement in activities to do with race and ethnic relations, will look for people who have been very active in community work, and other things to find students from broader range socioeconomic backgrounds," Fitzsimmons says.

According to Fitzsimmons, Harvard would not likely be as affected by strict federal legislation as other institutions because it already takes a broad range of factors into account to find students of diverse backgrounds.

Also, because such a high percentage of Harvard applicants are more or less equally qualified to be admitted, affirmative action has never been used to admit lesser-qualified applicants but rather as a "tie-breaker," he says.

While limitations on admissions offices would be damaging, the effect of a national ban on affirmative action in admissions could vastly reduce the number of minorities who apply to highly selective schools, Fitzsimmons says.

"Since we don't know what the ruling might be, we can't know what the resulting climate might be," Fitzsimmons says. "Over a long period of time, perhaps, it might have a chilling effect on minority applications."

Prospective minority students often consider the racial make-up of schools to which they apply, Fitzsimmons says, and if they don't perceive the school as a place friendly to minorities, they are far less likely to apply.

In this scenario, Harvard's current strategy may become even more important, Fitzsimmons says.

Harvard has and does aggressively recruit minority students--in some cases as early as middle school--to persuade them to come to Harvard, he says.