"High court poised to upend civil rights policies"

Associated Press/Eric Gay - In this March 5, 2013 photo, University of Texas senior Bradley Poole poses for a photo on campus near the Martin Luther King Jr. statue in Austin, Texas. Poole, an advertising major, became president of the school's Black Student Alliance, seeking camaraderie after noticing he often was the only African-American in his classes. In two pivotal legal cases, one on affirmative action and another on voting rights, a divided U.S. Supreme Court may be poised in the coming weeks to rule that racism is largely a relic of America's past. The question is apt as the nation nears a demographic tipping point, when non-whites become the country's majority for the first time.

Hope Yen (AP):

In the seven or so states that enacted bans on affirmative action at their public universities, freshman enrollments of blacks and Hispanics almost always fell afterward — as much as 50 percent at UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley — although in some cases they later rebounded. Those states now include Arizona, California, Florida, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington. A Supreme Court ruling that further restricts affirmative action could shake up college admissions policies nationwide, perhaps shifting focus to low-income students or low-performing schools. MORE...