The U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in 2003 in the affirmative action cases of "Gratz v. Bollinger" (2003) and "Grutter v. Bollinger" (2003), sometimes referred to as the "Michigan cases," provided the first indication of the role that race-conscious admission policies will play in higher education in the new century since the Court's decision twenty-five years earlier in "Regents of the University of California v. Bakke" (1978). Following the "Bakke" decision, but prior to the Court's ruling in the Michigan cases, the conflicts between the decisions of various appellate courts muddled much of the legal affirmative action debate nationally. This article examines the Court's decisions in the Michigan cases and provides recommendations for institutional researchers and other administrators to assist their campuses in complying with recent court decisions while preparing for the inevitable next round of litigation. Before turning to the details of the legal history of affirmative action and recommendations, the authors first examine the idea of diversity in higher education.