Okay, now before you go running off half-cocked, that's not what she said.
This story was taken from a story written by Ron Fournier. That should tell you something. Even so, if you look at the story, you find that Rice objected to Michigan's bogus point system and agreed with the President that the Wolverines were out of line. She is simply saying that in the real world, race can be considered, but not as a deciding factor.
Look at her record at Stanford. She considered qualifications (did you get your Ph.D at Chicago or at the Univeristy of Grand Cayman...), publishing performance, teaching performance, etc., primarily when doing hiring. Race was not a primary consideration to her when hiring faculty, so I think her record is on solid ground.
Except for hiring the football coach. She forbade the coach from running the Wishbone because Stanford didn't have the bodies to do it.
She is on record as being opposed to quotas, but that does not mean that one cannot consider the race of an individual as a factor. In the real world, that's part of what happens. That's unfair? Yes. Suppose a college believes that it needs more minority enrollment. It can go out and hunt for more black, Hispanic, and Asian students. That's the right of the college. What Bush is trying to do, and I believe that Rice agrees with him on this, is to put the nail in the coffin of the quota system.
BTW, I have a reason as to why the brief was narrowly written. DO NOT try to get out in front of the SCOTUS, especially when Scalia will run riot all over the courtroom, spanking Michigan's Lawyers so hard they'll curse their mother's for having given them birth. If Bush writes it narrow, and the Court goes Broad, Bush wins. If Bush goes broad and the Court writes a narrow opinion, the Chattering Classes write that SCOTUS smacked down Bush.
Bush has positioned himself nicely by tackling Michigan's methods, not opening a broad front against AA altogether. Salami tactics, people, salami tactics.
Be Seeing You,
Chris