Detroit - Armed with signs, buttons, informative pamphlets and a large youth contingent, activists plan to demonstrate in Ann Arbor the day a decision is reached by the U.S. Supreme Court on the University of Michigan's race-based admission policies.

"Win or lose, a new civil rights movement has been born," said Tanya Troy, a national organizer for BAMN, or the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action & Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary. The Detroit-based organization is dedicated to building a youth movement to defend affirmative action.

Troy discussed the upcoming decision Tuesday while taking a break from fielding various phone calls, reading over press releases and deciding the group's next move.

"We have to keep building the movement," she said.

U-M uses a 150-point policy that awards 20 points to racial and ethnic minorities. Other factors involved in undergraduate admission are residency, attendance in a minority high school and whether relatives attended the university.

Members and supporters of the coalition will hold a news conference on the steps of Michigan's student union at noon on the day of the decision. The members will then demonstrate throughout campus. The decision could be handed down by the high court on Monday. The court begins its recess after June 26.

The Supreme Court recently heard two cases regarding U-M admission policies. Gratz v. Bollinger, a lawsuit filed by Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher in October 1997, challenged the administration's undergraduate admission's policy.

Barbara Grutter filed a similar lawsuit in December 1997, Grutter v. Bollinger, challenging raced-based admission at the university's law school.

Lisa Resch, a high school coordinator for the coalition, said the organization has been highly involved in the issue since it was announced that the Supreme Court would rule on the issue.

"The thing about a victory is that it will say to every young person that if you stand up and fight, you will win," Resch said.

Resch and a group of minority students met in a conference room on the 28th floor of an office building in downtown Detroit, where they discussed their view of the importance of keeping affirmative action in universities.

Resch said coalition members took 900 students, ranging in ages from high school to elementary, to an April 1 rally held in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. She said there also was support from some public and private universities around the state.

"It was a day that was a positive expression for integrated education and equality," she said.

But that day also was coupled with opposition, as those against affirmative action and the university's policies took their stance. And now they continue to plan their reaction to the ruling.

Roger Clegg, general counsel for the Center For Equal Opportunity, a nonprofit organization in Virginia that opposes racial preference and discrimination, said voting against affirmative action will improve equality in the United States.

"The Supreme Court has a great opportunity to hand down a landmark decision that will greatly advance the civil rights cause and improve racial relations," he said.

Clegg added while his organization is eagerly awaiting a decision, he will continue to fight against affirmative action whether his desired verdict is reached or not.

Clegg said he and other members of his organization have lobbied the conservative view by debating at colleges such as St. Louis and Boston universities, appearing on news channels such as CNN, and pushing their views through a nationally syndicated column written by Linda Chavez, the organization's president.

With a tired, yet determined look on her face, Miranda Massie, lead council for the defendants in the law school case, says the case has been her life - at times it's been demanding, but more importantly, rewarding.

Massie added there are four possible rulings the court could render.

She said the court could rule both university admission plans as illegal, but affirmative action might not be ruled out altogether. One of the plans might be ruled constitutional while the other is not, or the courts might side with U-M on both cases, Massie explained.

She said no matter what the decision, it might just be the beginning of longer legal battles to come at state and local levels.

"I'm hopeful they will uphold one or two programs," she said. "These cases are a turning point of most profound importance."

Ruben Duran, editor in chief of Michigan Review, U-M's student-run conservative newspaper, said even though many demonstrations at the university were pro-affirmative action, members of his newspaper were at on-campus demonstrations giving opposing views.

"The problem with affirmative action is that you're trying to solve 12 years of bad education by handing out admissions," he said.

Duran, who is working in a Washington public relations firm for the summer, said the story will dominate the first issue of the paper.

And it likely will continue to dominate the lives of many activists such as Duran and Troy, people on both sides of the issue.

"These cases and issues of affirmative action are going to be real critical for the history of the U.S.," Troy said.