Your Point: I love your question, "Is diversity the means or the end?" But isn't that kind of a leapfroggy question? Should we first press Michigan on what diversity is? Does it simply mean that, when one wanders Ann Arbor, one encounters people of many hues? What about diversity of thought? How about 20 pints for gays? Or conservatives? What about someone who went to high school in the white suburbs, but spent his grade school years with his peace-corps or missionary parents in Irian Jaya or Cambodia? I think if this were any other subject, any other case, the Supremes would never have even granted certiorari (how do you spell that?). In another case, Michigan would get laughed out of court for relying on the kind of nebulous reasoning behind "diversity" as a concept.

By the by, I salute you for your courageous prediction. For the life of me, I can't come up with 5 justices to rule against Michigan. Thomas, Scalia, Rheinquist -- sure. Kennedy? Maybe. Sandra Day? I doubt it. Souter is definitely not voting to flip this. The most likely outcome I can see is that the liberal wing agrees not to write an opinion for carte blanche preferences, maybe refining the idea of the "one of many factors" approach, and pulls in at least Kennedy, maybe O'Connor.