U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige today issued the following statement on the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions about the University of Michigan's admission policies:

"The court's decisions today reaffirm the president's and my position that diversity in our public institutions is an important value, and that institutions of higher education must engage in a good faith assessment of workable race-neutral, non-discriminatory ways to achieve diversity on our nation's campuses.

"We agree that not all applicants to college and graduate school start from the same place -- too many students in this country have been left behind by schools that have failed to prepare them to meet the competition of college and graduate school admission. But there are many effective, race-neutral options available to promote broader access and diversity in higher education today.

"As the court acknowledged, race-neutral policies can and are working across the nation. This spring, the department's Office for Civil Rights released a report detailing these programs and brought together many of our nation's distinguished higher education leaders for a conference to discuss effective race-neutral ways to achieve diversity. Consistent with the court's opinions today, the department will continue to do its part by examining and highlighting effective race-neutral approaches to ensure broad access to and diversity within our public institutions.

"The department will also continue with our mission to close the achievement gap to ensure that all students are prepared at the front end to meet the competition in higher education, without the benefit of special preference at the back end. That's the president's and my mission with the No Child Left Behind law: to fundamentally change the way we educate our children in America -- to change our public schools from a system that does a good job educating some of the children, to a system that's held accountable for educating every child, from every walk of life."

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