On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court rendered one of the most important legal decisions in American history. With its first opinion in the "Brown v. Board of Education," the Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren stated that racial segregation should not be allowed even if Black and White schools had equal funding, equal opportunities, and were equivalent in all other resources. The eventual result of the "Brown" decision was the complete breakdown of the legally mandated, or de jure segregation. In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld limited use of race-conscious admissions policies in the University of Michigan Law School case, "Grutter v. Bollinger"; however, even this small victory was threatened in 2004 by the so-called Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, a proposed referendum to eliminate race-conscious measures in all state-sponsored venues. In this essay, the author analyzes American racial dynamics through the lens of "Brown" and "Grutter," focusing on political interests surrounding the decisions and the evidence considered within them. The author also examines how neoconservatives manipulated these factors to create an ideological racial hierarchy partly routed in educational achievement differences. By comparing and contrasting the cases, the author highlights many of the ironies that characterize these two American civil rights "victories"--half a century apart. Although the lessons are far from clear, several preliminary lessons emerge from this analysis.