DETROIT - The University of Michigan law school’s admissions standards are unconstitutional because they use race as a factor in judging applicants, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

In a case that could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman granted the plaintiff’s request for an injunction and ordered the law school to stop using race.

“There is no question about the long and tragic history of race discrimination in this country,” Friedman wrote in his ruling.

However, he said, the law school’s justification for using race to assemble a racially diverse student population is not a compelling state interest.

Even if it was in the state interest, the law school has not narrowly tailored its use of race to achieve that interest.

“The legal issue is whether a school can use race to try to achieve the benefits of a diverse student body,” said Terence Pell, CEO of the Center for Individual Rights, which brought the suit on behalf of Barbara Grutter. Grutter, who is white, claimed she was denied admission in 1997 because less-qualified minorities get preferential treatment.

“While there may be educational benefits as a matter of law, it does not justify race-based admissions,” Pell said.

The university’s attorneys said they would appeal and immediately request to stay Friedman’s order.

“His ruling overturns over 20 years of settled law and the practices of virtually every selective college and university in the country,” said Liz Berry, associate University of Michigan vice president and deputy general counsel.

“If Judge Friedman’s ruling is upheld by the Supreme Court, it would have a divisive effect on colleges and universities across the country. But we are confident that we will prevail because of the overwhelming evidence that diversity is critical to education.”

The university has argued its admissions policy is compliant with California’s Bakke case of 1978, in which the Supreme Court allowed consideration of race in university admissions but outlawed racial quotas.

Friedman said Justice Lewis Powell’s statements supporting race-based admissions in the Bakke case reflected his individual views, not those of the court.

Berry disagreed, saying Bakke always has been interpreted as “the law of the land” until now.

Friedman heard more than 64 hours of testimony in the case. His job was to determine whether affirmative action is needed to offset biases that minority students face, whether the law school uses a double standard to admit minorities, and to what extent Michigan uses race when making admissions decisions.

Miranda Massie, an attorney for the group of student interveners in the case, also promised an appeal, saying Friedman’s opinion intensifies existing racial inequalities.

“This decision threatens to resegregate higher education and to increase the unfair racist stigma that is faced by minority students in higher education,” Massie said.

In December, U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan affirmed Michigan’s undergraduate admissions standards in place since 1999 on the grounds that they are a constitutional way to achieve diversity.

In his ruling on Dec. 13, 2000, Duggan declared as unconstitutional the school’s grid-based admissions policy from 1995 through 1998, concluding that it represented an impermissible, quota-like use of race in “reserving” spots for underrepresented minorities.

Both suits, being closely watched by educators nationwide, appear headed to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati and could wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court.