Washington ? Supreme Court justices vigorously debated the role of race in higher education Tuesday in a pair of cases that could rewrite the rules for affirmative action on campus and beyond.

The justices aggressively questioned lawyers, focusing on likely consequences of discrimination and educational opportunity.

Three white applicants rejected by the University of Michigan and its law school are challenging the school’s admissions policies as unconstitutional racial discrimination. They contend that black, Hispanic and American Indian candidates with the same qualifications are given preferential treatment.

“I have to say that in looking at your program it looks to me like this is just a disguised quota,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy told a university lawyer.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who with Kennedy is considered a crucial swing vote on the issue, asked skeptical questions of the white applicants’ lawyer.

“You say (race) can’t be a factor at all. Is that it — is that your position, that it cannot be one of many factors?” O’Connor asked lawyer Kirk Kolbo.

Told yes, O’Connor replied that the constitutional argument isn’t so simple.

“You’re speaking in absolutes and it isn’t quite that,” she said. “I think we have given recognition to the use of race in a variety of settings.”

The court amassed more than 100 friend of the court filings on the affirmative action cases, an apparent record. Most of the filings backed the idea that affirmative action has a place in American life, from the classroom to the boardroom.

In another measure of the issue’s resonance, the court agreed to release an audio tape of the arguments the same day. The court had done that only one other time, after the last presidential election.

The Michigan undergraduate school uses a point system to screen the thousands of applicants it receives each year. A minority member can get a 20 point bonus out of a the system’s possible 150, while various measures of academic performance, extracurricular activity and other attributes are generally worth less.

The law school uses a vaguer system intended to yield a “critical mass” of minorities in each class, generally around 10 percent or more.

The resulting mix of students from different racial, ethnic, geographical and economic backgrounds benefits everyone, including whites, lawyer Maureen Mahoney argued.

“Sure, they’re in already,” Justice Antonin Scalia exclaimed. “The people you want to talk to are the high school seniors who have seen people visibly less qualified than they are get into prestigious institutions where they are rejected. If you think that is not creating resentment, you are just wrong.”

In 1978, the court outlawed the use of quotas, but allowed race to be used as one factor in tax-supported university admissions.