PORTLAND – Bates, Bowdoin and Colby colleges have joined 25 other private liberal arts schools in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold affirmative action programs at the University of Michigan.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, the schools argue that they have a compelling interest in enrolling racially diverse student bodies, and race must be considered to achieve that goal.

“Research and experience suggests that for small, highly selective, largely private colleges … carving out race from all the other kinds of diversity will have a predictable, substantial resegregating effect, probably moving black students from roughly 5-7 percent of the student body to 2 percent or so,” the 30-page brief reads.

The schools note that black students were largely absent from highly selective U.S. colleges and universities until affirmative action programs were instituted in the 1960s.

“Only when those schools began to aim for racial diversity among the other kinds of diversity long sought for, did those schools begin to enroll more than token numbers of African-American students,” the brief reads.

The court’s ruling could affect any school that receives federal funding.

In the Michigan lawsuit, which is considered the most important affirmative action case in decades, justices will look at whether race can be considered in undergraduate and law school admissions. The case could also have ramifications on hiring practices.

Admissions programs for undergraduates at Michigan score applicants by points, giving a 20-point boost to minorities and some poor applicants. The law school uses a formula that tries to ensure each class has minority enrollment of about 10 percent or 12 percent.

The Bush administration filed its own brief last month, arguing that Michigan’s admissions policies are unconstitutional and racial diversity can be achieved in race-neutral ways, with policies that guarantee college admission to top students from every public high school.

The other private colleges joining the brief are Amherst, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Carleton, Connecticut, Davidson, Franklin & Marshall, Hamilton, Hampshire, Haverford, Macalester, Middlebury, Mount Holyoke, Oberlin, Pomona, Sarah Lawrence, Smith, Swarthmore, Trinity, Vassar, Wellesley and Williams. Three private universities – Colgate, Wesleyan and Tufts – also participated.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case on April 1, and the justices will rule before July.