The public policy and legal issues surrounding preferential admissions of minorities in higher education and the politics and human drama of the controversy are reviewed and analyzed in this book. Focus is on the court cases of Marco DeFunis against the University of Washington law school and Allan Bakke against the University of California Medical School at Davis. The problem considered is how to promote equal opportunity for disadvantaged minorities through affirmative action without engaging in reverse discrimination. Included in the book are considerations of divergent notions of equal opportunity, increasing numbers of applicants and rising standards of admission, racial preference, special admissions or discretionary selection, goals and quotas, legal strategies, comparative academic qualifications, an increasing supply of qualified minority applicants, equal protection of the laws and racial classifications, and political implications. The Bakke and DeFunis cases are detailed through the arguments before the Supreme Court. A final chapter is devoted to an analysis of the Supreme Court's split decision in the Bakke case. Appended is a discussion of the Harvard College Admissions Program. (LBH)