There are also vital, practical needs for affirmative action. These needs all derive from the fact that affirmative action continues to be the most effective tool for promoting diversity in medical education, which is critical for protecting and improving public health.

Diversity in medical education is essential for four major reasons:

• It shapes the quality of medical education for all students. "Culturally competent" physicians possess skills and attitudes that help them treat people from a wide range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

• It helps increase access to medical care. Nearly three decades of research indicates that minority physicians are more likely to practice among underserved populations.

• It accelerates advances in medical and public health research. Diversity in the research workforce will continue to lead to investigations of health problems that historically have not received adequate attention.

• Diversity in the health-care industry makes good business sense. A managerial staff that mirrors the racial and ethnic makeup of a health-care organization's clientele will be more capable of dealing with the needs of individuals from diverse backgrounds.

If the Supreme Court rules against the University of Michigan's use of race in its admission's policies, there will be serious consequences. At a time in which our nation's minority populations are growing rapidly, and serious health disparities exist among these minority populations, hindering academic medicine's ability to address these issues is unacceptable and unconscionable.

— Charles Terrell, Ed.D., is vice president of the Division of Community and Minority Programs of the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, D.C.