Affirmative Action Heading Back to Supreme Court?

The Washington Post's Robert Barnes reports on two likely candidates for the Supreme Court's next major ruling on affirmative action:

One is from Texas, where a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld a race-conscious admissions policy at the University of Texas at Austin. An attempt to have the entire circuit hear the case failed 9 to 7, and dissenters practically invited the Supreme Court to step in.

The other is from Michigan, where voters in 2006 passed a constitutional amendment to forbid the state's public colleges and universities from granting "preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin."

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled 2 to 1 that the amendment violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because it restructures the state's political structure to the detriment of minorities.