Many found this solution troubling - including supporters of race-conscious public policies, like affirmative action, in other areas.

A race-based layoff is a harder sell, both politically and legally, than almost any other race-conscious policy.

The strict-scrutiny position fits with the Bush administration's general view that race-conscious policies like affirmative action are constitutionally impermissible.

They emphasize race-conscious policies and the continued application of affirmative action and desegregation principles.

"Now it wishes to use that order as a pretext to pursue race-conscious, diversity-enhancing policies in perpetuity," the judge wrote.

In addition, 14,000 law school students lent their signatures to a brief defending race-conscious policies in higher education that will be submitted on Tuesday.

A study released last month suggested that Boston set both race-conscious and race-neutral policies for awarding contracts.

If Hatch and his party want to try to proscribe race-conscious policies by democratic means, nobody's stopping them (from trying, that is).

As an illustration of what that would mean, they constructed a rough profile of 700 blacks admitted in 1976 under race-conscious policies.

According to the NYT , high schools and elementary schools are increasingly butting heads with parents of rejected students over race-conscious policies.