This article reports that a state ballot measure to ban affirmative-action programs based on race, gender, and national origin at public colleges and other state agencies was defeated. Colorado voters narrowly rejected such a referendum last week by a razor-thin margin that took two days to become official. Voters in Nebraska, however, took the opposite stand, approving a similar ballot question. Those measures were among 19 referenda related to higher education that voters in 15 states decided in last week's election. Among the ballot questions approved were a plan in Arkansas to create a state lottery, whose proceeds would go to college scholarships, and bond measures in New Mexico to pay for construction on college campuses. Michigan residents cast ballots on embryonic-stem-cell research, voting to relax that state's restrictions on such work.