Supreme Court upholds Michigan ban on affirmative action

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette speaks to reporters after arguing the case before the U.S. Supreme Court in October. He's with XIV Foundation CEO Jennifer Gratz, who was a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the University of Michigan's affirmative action policy.

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African Americans currently make up just 4.6 percent of University of Michigan's undergraduates, but they comprise 14 percent of the state's population.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Michigan's ban on using race as a factor in college admissions Tuesday.

African Americans currently make up just 4.6 percent of University of Michigan's undergraduates, but they comprise 14 percent of the state's population. At California's most selective campuses, that divide is similar: at UC Berkeley, 11 percent of freshman in 2011 were Hispanic, though Hispanics make up 49 percent of the state's college-aged residents; at UCLA, 3 percent of incoming freshman were African American, despite making up 9 percent of the state's population.

So if not through affirmative action, how can universities better achieve racial equality on campus?

For more on this, we're joined by Peter Schmidt, senior writer at the Chronicle of Higher Education.