Preparing underrepresented students for college success though pre-collegiate partnership programs is one alternative to affirmative action programs. This article describes the Multicultural Excellence Program (MEP), a partnership program between an urban school district and 22 four-year higher education institutions. MEP, begun in 1987, targets 7th-12th-grade students from groups historically underrepresented in higher education. It helps them plan how to prepare themselves for continuing on to a four-year college. Analyses evaluating program effectiveness examined outcomes of over 4,000 secondary students and 243 college students. Despite substantial turnover, particularly at transition points, MEP has been very successful in enrolling its high school graduates immediately in four-year colleges. Although many MEP students have thrived in college, a smaller proportion has struggled.Universities across the United States have strived to ensure diversity of their student body. Efforts to create campus diversity at U.S. universities are supported by administrators and faculty, for they believe campus diversity benefits all students and faculty (e.g., Maruyama & Moreno, 2000). Campus diversity helps colleges address a fundamental goal, namely, to provide a setting that allows the free exchange of divergent perspectives about issues and that gives meaning to different types of information, while also providing all students with opportunities to develop their skills of interacting with others who are different (e.g., Duderstadt, 2000). Such interactions help prepare students to live and function effectively in the global society of the 21st century. Beliefs about the importance of diversity have been constructed on early research on the effects of college on college students (e.g., Newcomb, 1943), and have been reinforced by recent research focused on the value for all students of a diverse student body-in particular, a student body including U.S. students of color (e.g., Gurin, 1999). Other recent research suggests that campus impacts are only a part of the long-term societal benefits of student diversity (Bowen & Bok, 1998).The precedent for using information about race/ethnicity to help attain a diverse student body was established by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1977 Bakke decision (e.g., Crosby & VanDeVeer, 2000, pp. 236-251). Bakke allowed use of race/ethnicity information as long as there were not strict quotas or different criteria used across groups. That is, Bakke viewed diversity as a "compelling interest" and allowed race/ethnicity to be used as one of many factors in making acceptance decisions. Recently, however, attaining student diversity on campuses of public institutions was made more difficult by district and appeals court decisions contrary to Bakke in places including Texas and Michigan. These inconsistencies led the Supreme Court to reconsider its Bakke decision by reviewing two cases from the University of Michigan. In two decisions dated June 23, 2003, the court upheld Bakke (U.S. Supreme Cour...