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Supreme court to re-enter affirmative action debate in University of Texas case Supreme court to re-enter affirmative action debate in University of Texas case
(about 4 hours later)
The supreme court said Monday it will dive back into the fight over the use of race in admissions at the University of Texas, a decision that presages tighter limits on affirmative action in higher education. The US supreme court on Monday agreed to wade back into a years-long legal battle over the use of race in the undergraduate admissions process at the University of Texas, setting the stage for a seminal challenge to affirmative action in higher education.
The justices said they will hear for a second time the case of a white woman who was denied admission to the university’s flagship Austin campus. In a one-line order on the last day of an eventful session, the justices said they would return to the case involving Abigail Fisher, a white student from Texas, who was denied admission by the university’s Austin campus in 2008 under its race-conscious admissions policy. After her rejection, Fisher and her lawyers sued the university for discrimination.
The conservative-leaning federal appeals court in New Orleans has twice upheld the university’s admissions process, including in a ruling last year that followed a supreme court order to reconsider the woman’s case. The justices’ decision to reconsider the case has raised the prospect that the supreme court could dramatically restrict, or possibly end, the decades-long practice of using racial preferences in the higher education admissions process.
The case began in 2008 when Abigail Fisher, who is white, was denied admission to the University of Texas’s flagship Austin campus because she did not graduate in the top 10% of her high school class – the criterion for 75% of the school’s admissions. The university also passed her over for a position among the remaining 25%, which is reserved for special scholarships and people who meet a formula for personal achievement that includes race as a factor. Opponents argue that affirmative action does not solve racial disparity in higher education, and discriminates against applicants who do not benefit from such policies. Proponents, however, argue that affirmative action is necessary to undo generations of discrimination against non-white students.
The case went to the US supreme court in June 2013. But rather than issue a landmark decision on affirmative action, it voted 7-1 to tell a lower appeals court to take another look at Fisher’s lawsuit. That meant the university’s admissions policies remained unchanged. The case went up to the supreme court in 2013, but the justices sent it back to the lower appeals court, instructing the judges to re-evaluate the university’s admissions process and give it more scrutiny.
Last year, the fifth US circuit court of appeals again upheld the university’s admissions policy. Fisher is a graduate of Louisiana State University. In that ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, said that the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit was wrong to assume the University of Texas’s decision “was made in good faith”; it should have closely examined how the process worked in practice and made its own assessment.
Justice Elena Kagan is not taking part in the case. She sat out the first round as well, presumably because of her work on the case when she served in the Justice Department before joining the court. The fifth circuit court of appeals in New Orleans, which covers Texas and is among the nation’s most conservative, has twice upheld the University of Texas’s admissions process, including in last year’s ruling, which followed the supreme court’s order that it reconsider the case.
The case, Fisher v University of Texas, 14-981, will be argued in the fall. Last July, the federal appeals panel was persuaded that barring the university from considering race in the admissions process would hurt diversity on campus.
“We are persuaded that to deny UT Austin its limited use of race in its search for holistic diversity would hobble the richness of the educational experience,” the panel said.
The majority of in-state applicants accepted to the University of Texas are students who graduated in the top 10% of their high school class. The remaining admissions are for students who have received special scholarships or meet other standards that include race and ethnicity as a factor.
The case, Fisher v University of Texas at Austin, is due to be argued in autumn.
Justice Elena Kagan has again recused herself from the case, presumably because she worked on it previously while serving as the US solicitor general.