With the Supreme Court to revisit the constitutionality of affirmative action, former University president Stephen Joel Trachtenberg said the result will likely force colleges to be more creative in their standards for admission.

In an op-ed for Bloomberg published Monday, Trachtenberg said universities already consider economic diversity, cultural pluralism, gender equity and geographic distribution in their admissions, but said the court’s ruling may require a “less politically charged” set of criteria.

The conservative-leaning court agreed Feb. 21 to hear a case regarding the constitutionality of admitting students with attention to race, threatening to roll back universities’ affirmative action policies in admissions.

Trachtenberg explained that affirmative action had been “a bitter, but necessary pill,” to improve access for underrepresented populations and build a student body with diverse backgrounds. But he is confident that institutions of higher education can build a “multidimensional” class.

“Now [colleges] may have an opportunity to use their wits to find the legal means to admit and enroll multicultural classes without the use of affirmative action,” he wrote.

He continued, “Schools will work within the law, as they have in the past, and they will be creative in responding to any court ruling as they continue to fulfill their mission. After all, colleges are known for their creative interpretation of the classics – whether they are by Shakespeare or the chief justice.”