[SunStar]

Bush's position is that racial diversity is good, but only if it is acheived based on merit.

[DSH]

"Ensuring that public institutions, especially educational institutions, are open and accessible to a broad and diverse array of individuals, including individuals of all races and ethnicities, is an important and entirely legitimate government objective. Measures that ensure diversity, accessibility and opportunity are important components of government's responsibility to its citizens."

* * * *

"No segment of society should be denied an opportunity to obtain access to government services and public institutions. Nowhere is the importance of such openess more acute than in the context of higher education. A university degree opens the doors to the finest jobs and top professional schools, and professional degree, in turn, makes it possible to practice law, medicine and other professions. If undergraduate and graduate institutions are not open to all individuals and broadly inclusive to our diverse national community, then the top jobs, graduate schools and the professions will be closed to some."

"Nothing in the Constitution requires public universities and governments to close their eyes to this reality or tolerate artificial obstacles to educational opportunity. Public universities have substantial latitude to tackle such problems and ensure that universities and other public institutions are open to all that student bodies are experientially diverse and broadly representative of the public. Schools may identify and discard facially neutral criteria that, in practice, tend to skew admissions in a manner that detracts from educational diversity."