Grutter v. Bollinger/Gratz v. Bollinger: View from a Limestone Ledge

June 22, 2003 was a typically sultry summer day in Austin. The kids were swimming; white clouds with no promise of rain moved slowly across the sky. The sky itself was that bleached-out blue that it gets as summer starts to envelop the hill country and life seems to slow down to match the climate. I was sitting with one colleague watching our kids swim, and we were visiting with a former colleague who was in town connecting with old friends and shepherding his children around to see their friends. We were discussing the cases still pending before the Supreme Court and especially the Michigan cases. We had all listened to the oral arguments and had participated in the drafting of amicus briefs for this organization or that one. We each had our view about how the Court would decide