E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSThe U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case involving the University of Texas at Austin, a school that said it based its admissions policy on an earlier ruling about racial diversity in higher education. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
Updated at 1:04 p.m. ET: WASHINGTON -- In a potentially momentous case, the Supreme Court will once again confront the issue of race in university admissions in an appeal brought by a white student denied a spot at the flagship campus of the University of Texas.
The court said Tuesday it will return to the issue of affirmative action in higher education for the first time since its 2003 decision endorsing the use of race as a factor in freshmen admissions. This time around, a more conservative court is being asked to jettison that ruling and outlaw affirmative action in the university setting.
A broad ruling in favor of the student, Abigail Fisher, could threaten affirmative action programs at many of the nation's public and private universities, said Vanderbilt University law professor Brian Fitzpatrick.
The high court agreed to hear an appeal by Fisher, who was a high school senior when she applied but was rejected for admission in 2008 to the University of Texas at Austin.
Fisher filed a lawsuit with another woman who was also denied admission. They contended the university's race-conscious policy violated their civil and constitutional rights. By then, the two had enrolled elsewhere.
The other woman has since dropped out of the case and the state has said that Fisher is a senior at Louisiana State University whose impending graduation should bring an end to the lawsuit. But the Supreme Court appeared not to buy that argument Tuesday.
Most entering freshmen at Texas are admitted because they are among the top 10 percent in their high school class. The Texas policy applies to the remaining spots and allows for the consideration of race along with other factors.
Texas had dropped affirmative action policies after a 1996 appeals court ruling. But following the high court ruling in 2003, the university resumed considering race starting with its 2005 entering class.
Texas said its updated policy does not use quotas, which the high court has previously rejected. Instead, it said it takes a Supreme Court-endorsed holistic approach to enrollment, with an eye toward increasing the diversity of the student body.
Before adding race back into the mix, Texas' student body was 21 percent African-American and Hispanic, according to court papers.
By 2007, the year before Fisher filed her lawsuit, African-Americans and Hispanics accounted for more than a quarter of the entering freshman class.
Fisher contends the university's admissions policies discriminated against her on the basis of race in violation of her constitutional rights and the federal civil rights laws. She says many minority students who were admitted had lower grades and test scores than she did.
Her attorney urged the Supreme Court to reconsider its last ruling on the issue in 2003, when it reaffirmed that a diverse student population can justify use of race as one factor to help minorities gain admission to public universities and colleges.
But the makeup of the high court has changed since then. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who approved of the concept, has been replaced by the generally more conservative Samuel Alito.
Also, Justice Elena Kagan has taken herself off this case, because she worked on the issue while still at the Justice Department as a solicitor general. That takes a potential vote in favor of affirmative action off the court.
In its 2003 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld a University of Michigan Law School's use of race to favor minority applicants in the admissions process. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that the government has a compelling interest in diversity in public universities. That case was Grutter v. Bollinger.
At issue in both cases is whether and to what extent the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection of the laws” permits race to be used as a factor in efforts to achieve greater diversity in higher education. For more than three decades, the Supreme Court has said that although race may be one of numerous factors taken into account, it cannot be the predominant consideration in an admissions process.
Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law scholar and dean of the University of California Irvine's law school, has called the Fisher case "potentially momentous." He says there are almost surely four votes -- John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Alito -- to overrule Grutter. That means the outcome could rest with Justice Anthony Kennedy's vote.
Fitzpatrick said two other states, California and Florida, use "top 10" plans similar to Texas' plan, although California law explicitly prohibits the consideration of race.
"But the vast majority of schools that are selective are using affirmative action, though they don't like to advertise it for fear of being sued," he said.
A three-judge federal appeals panel of the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit upheld the Texas program at issue in a January 2011 decision, saying it did not violate the 14th Amendment's equal-protection clause.
The Supreme Court could hear the case in October or the first week of November, in the final days of the presidential campaign.
Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative law group that filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to take the case, applauded Tuesday’s announcement as "good news for everyone who believes in equal rights and equal opportunities.”
“Using race in admissions decisions, to achieve diversity, amounts to stereotyping people by their race,” PLF attorney Joshua P. Thompson said in a statement. “In the real world, shared skin color does not automatically translate into shared backgrounds or beliefs. Racial diversity in a student body does not guarantee a diversity of experience and perspectives. It is unrealistic and wrong to try to pigeon-hole people by their race."
The case is Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, 11-345.
The Associated Press, Reuters and NBC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pete Williams contributed to this report.
- Red Tape: Online coupons not always honored by merchants
- Santorum defends 'theology' remark, Hitler inference, blames media
- Survivor of deadly avalanche: It was like a 'washing machine'
- Girl, 12, found naked and rummaging in trash in Calif.
Leave a Comment:
79% of the students are white, 21% are minorities, wow, the school is being taken over by minorities.
The more white the more right!!!!
who made the ultimate mistake of trying to be "fair"...Is "fair" in the Constitution? Healthcare and free contraception aren't either...
We started a war and fought for our independence over "fair" treatment. So we LITERALLY started the nation with the idea that we should be treated fairly.
Which whites isn't it fair to? Those who didn't work hard enough to even be more qualified than the lazy Blacks????
i had a friend (white) who on his PSAT checked that he was black. the univeristy of texas offered him a full ride. when he indicated that he was white, the offer was revoked. how is that right?
It is wrong...
The best and the brightest...period. We're paying through the nose for this education!
Because those who set policy, including politically influential black people, feel that black students are stupid, inferior and in need of "special" assistance.
This is a LIE. PSAT scored aren't sent to ANY university. Try again.
I am for phasing out affirmative action because I think it's inefficient and unfair, but I really don't think your friend was turned away for being white, necessarily. It could have been because he falsified information on an official document, lying about his race.
Of those who have suffered with the burden and sometimes inequality of Affirmative Action...it is often tough and exclusionary. But, stop to consider the amount of time that the past abuses existed to cause creation of the justice of Afffirmative Action. It is a tough world out there and sometimes the efforts to attempt to level the playing field can be hurtful. Hooray for the System! I just hope that one day, one fine day, the system of opportunity will truly become blind to the differences between us. As a realist, I recognize that will never happen....but it is a marvelous goal ! I believe the application process which identifies the race, religion, sexual preference or creed of any State sponsored or supported institution should be illegal.
American- Great post.
If you are paying for this education...it should be based strictly on being the best and the brightest...period.
Minorities have so many more benefits than anyone else! It is racism against the majority!
broke- Minorities have so many more benefits than anyone else? Name them please!
Here's a radical idea...take the kids with the best SAT scored. Period. Publish the scores needed for admission, and anyone who falls short of the mark doesn't get in. No consideration will be made for anyone's color.
Next case...
That would include all athletic scholarships as well correct?
Sandtrich, I take exception to your logic. You and yours may well be part of the "we" who held a slave in the day. It has been illegal for on he order of 140 years now. My grandparents entered this country legally from Europe long after slavery was abolished. And what happened there is a debate for another time.
I'm fine if you feel you and your family owes something for your sins, real or perceived. But in fairness, don't cast a net that makes someone else's family pay the penance for the sins of yours. That crosses an important line. Clear your own consience. Mine is clear.
Equal opportunity is just what it says equal opportunity. There must always be merit as considerations for all things. Whether you get a job, whether you get into a school, whether you get into an Armed Service. Anything that actually requires that you do something and get compensated for your doing something must be based on Merit.
If it is not than the US is not an equal rights country and any such unequal classification will only serve to divide the and differentiate Race and Sex at the expence of people as American's.
Well, affirmative action, while well intentioned and merited immediately following the end of segregation/slavery, has to end at some point.
The further removed we are from overt discrimination against minorities, the more affirmative action resembles discrimination against the majority.
Personal opinion: We're four generations out from segregation. Why are we punishing white kids who were born in the mid-1990's (i.e., the kids applying for college now)?
If someone can provide a reasoned explanation (other than the generic "socio-economic inequality" that itself carries less and less weight as we get further removed from segregation...unless you can also explain why now, in 2012, this argument is still decisive), I'd be all ears. If not, then the state's interest in promoting racial equality via reverse discrimination in college admissions may no longer be compelling and perhaps it is time to revisit the Constitutionality of affirmative action in college admissions...even though I do generally hate this conservative court's decisions as of late.
How in the world are we 4 generations out from segregation?? You must be layering them in pretty tight. I would assume the continued statistics on "generic socio-ecomonic inequality" are having a desensitizing effect on you. Would it be irking if instead of having race as a factor (as it has already been deemed to not be the deciding factor) but instead socio-ecomonic levels themselves? It could just so happen that in certain geographic regions of the country those levels fall perhaps not exclusively, but at least moderately along racial lines. There are always those that for one reason or another have applications denied. For those that often argue against affirmative action they would say "that's real life for you."
1 opinion You say a lot of words which really have no meaning other than you would like to be treated differently than everyone else.
1Opinion.
(1)
With respect to "how many generations we are from segregation"...It's 4. Baby Boom, Generation X, Generation Y and Generation Z. I'm not layering close at all...as these four comprise basically 20 year increments...which makes sense speaking genrationally.
I include Baby Boom because though a small portion of their births occurred during segregation (i.e., the very beginning of the generation), they had no culpability with respect to the policy because they were children at the time.
(2)
Not at all. But, the further we get from segreation, the more tenuous the link between segregation and the continuing inequality...which is the point of what I was saying. Each day the argument for affirmative actions gets weaker because each day is one more day between us and segregation.
(3)
I mean, this is an entirely different animal than affirmative action...with an entirely different rationale justifying it. Affirmative action is a puiative program that takes something from whites and reallocates it to minorities (i.e., college admissions, federal contracts, jobs, etc.)...the justification of which is the culpaibility of whites with respect to segregation/slavery. That is, affirmative action openly discriminates against whites in favor of minorities because of what whites previously did to minorities and justifies this discrimnation by reference to segregation/slavery.
The program you suggest (i.e., discriminating against the rich in favor of the poor) is much more radical than affirmative action because it implies there has been class discrimination by the rich against the poor that must be remedied. That is, your program's punitive nature must be justified by some form of culpability (like affirmative action) and the only culpability to justify it requires acknowledgment of a systematic discrimination by the rich against poor people. Feel free to provide another rationale...but I think you'll find it's open to the same objection detailed below.
I may agree in principal that this occurs and that the program is justified, but this, of course, would be a radical shift in US ideology...akin to an acknowledgment that the underlying premise of communism (i.e., the bourgeois exploitation of the proletariat) is a correct one.
Highly unlikely in the current climate where we can't even get the Bush tax cuts wrt millionaires waived to finance x,y,z for the working class due to claims of "class warfare".
I would assume that those who want to end affirmative action also want to end all non-academic based scholarships--such as all athletic scholarships. Who cares how well Johnny can throw the football? What does that have to do with higher education? Grades should be the only consideration. We should just throw in need-based grants as well--don't discriminate against those that can pay the full tuition by giving those that can't a break on the cost. And so on and so forth with a sliding ratio of rational thought/priggishness.
I wonder how the claimant found out that she was first on the list of passed over students. I also wonder if race was also a factor at the college she did attend.
1opinion, I agree, no more athletic scholarships as scholarship and athletic have nothing to do with each other. Need-based grants? Keep them. If the student is qualified and has the misfortune to be born into poverty then by all means get that student into college with grants as getting the best students into college is good for the country as a whole, while having a better football team does not.
It wasn't a secret because it didn't happen.
1Opinion. I think you're ignoring the differing justifications for the three forms of college aid you mention.
Moreover, you're ignoring the type of distinction being drawn. Namely, classifications based on race are expressly prohibited by the Constitution absent a compelling state interest and narrow tailoring of the state program to address that interest. Classifications based on athletic prowess and wealth require no such Constitutional scrutiny (open question of whether our current system of Constitutional scrutiny re: X trait but not Y trait is logical in any sense of the word).
(a) College Sports. These scholarships are given based on merit...athletic merit. The people who don't get them don't get them because they lack this type of merit. I do agree that, to some extent, you either do or do not have innate athletic ability.
Whether or not athletic prowess is a reason to pay for someone's college is a separate question...and the facts vary from sport to sport. I.e., it is likely that men receiving college football scholarships at large D1 schools actually bring in net money to the school while women receiving soccer scholarships at the same school do not. So, different justifications for different genders/sports.
Nevertheless, unlike affirmative action, no matter what justification we choose for these scholarships, they are not punitive. That is, while they do express a preference for one trait over another, that preference is based on some quality of the person society prefers rather than some wrong doing of the person (or his distant ancestors) not being preferred.
(b) Need Based Grants. This is more similar to affirmative action, but still very distinguishable.
Need based grants, like college sports, also look to a quality in the recipient rather than the culpability of the non-recipient as their justification. That "quality" being preferred here is lack of wealth.
I can see how you might argue that this is more analogous to affirmative action in the sense that we invariably punish the rich by preferring the poor. But, I would disagree on two key points: (a) no one has ever posited that the justification for need based grants is because the rich did something wrong...merely that the poor need help and (b) wealth/poorness is not a Constitutionally protected class and, thus, we need not address the issue of Constitutionality and find an exception as we must do with affirmative action (again, one could argue that these Constitutionally protected classes are bogus, but the law of the land is the law of the land).
(c) Affirmative Action. Despite the minor distinctions, the key distinction when we start preferrnig somenoe because of their race (rather than their athletic prowess or lack of wealth) is that Constitutionally, we are prohibited from doing this.
Since the discrimination criteria is race, we can't just say as we do with need based grants "gee it would be nice if the poor people got educated as well at the expense of the rich...lets give them admission/extra money". This, again, is because race is a protected class Constitutionally.
So, we've had to add to the justification for the discrimination "gee it would be nice if the minorities got educated as well...plus...and we're doing this because they were discriniated against in the past which justifies ignoring the 14th amendment...lets give them admission/extra money."
Anyway, the whole Constitutional framework is open to objection, but we live here under it as it exists...And, as it exists, it prevents discrimnation based on race...not discrimnation based on athletic prowess or wealth...
Affirmative action is just reverse discrimination.I left a job that I enjoyed because of affirmative action had to be complied with to keep pace with the federal mandate of percentages established to insure federal funding.
You job performance and test scores were secondary in their selections for promotion.
I don't think Affirmation Action should be ended, as the social inequalities it was meant to address still exist. Rather the young woman's ethnicity should be added to the list of groups in need of remediation as identified by the policy, as it's growing rather obvious that the American South has millions of miserably educated Caucasians who are in need of a helping hand.
funny that you seem to think that all the "miserable educated" are southern and Caucasian. i'm so, so sad for ill-informed people like you. perhaps if you were better educated....
mike1954, Affirmative Action (not Affirmation) should end because is cannot address or end the social inequities for which is was designed. Affirmative Action, by its very existence, entrenches the already existing attitude that those being helped by AA cannot succeed otherwise. I have seen enough people "helped" by AA to see that the system actively promotes unqualified over those who are, in essence damaging the school or business where this is being done. Very, very few of the people I saw "helped" by AA have been able to overcome the tacit assumption that they are inferior.
theres no such thing as 'reverse racism'. racism is racism. period.
I wonder how many people have actually read the article before jumping in with their general comments about Affirmative Action.
The courts have made it clear that specific quotas are unconstitutional, as they constitute reverse discrimination. However, this case is not about quotas, but rather whether race could be one element of an application packet. The courts had ruled that it can in the Bollinger case, but since then we've had more conservative justices, with the liberal justice likely to recuse herself. Perhaps we might see the court overturn that principle as well. If that is the case, then one more foundation for affirmative action might be gone.
Hallelujah!
I believe diversity is a strength, but in an attempt to become more diverse for the sake of diversity, we seem to loose a national identity AMERICAN!
Colleges should be meritocracies just as the US military tries to be.
Affirmative action in admissions is about letting in students with inferior test scores so they can flunk out and have their lives ruined.
How does this help minorities?
Prove that all the "white students claiming they have been kept out of schools, based on better grades, better SAT or ACT scores, actually acheived those grades.
Rampant and wide spread cheating, grade inflation and Good ol' boy favors irreperablly tarnish the illustion that Good Schools produce high acheiving suburban students. Seems that Johnny can't read despite what his SAT test scores seem to indicate. Why? Because Johnny has had someone else do the work take the SAT's ... and Johnny isn't even on an atheletic scholarship... Johnny and Madison, Britney and Tad never had to study, but want the degree they feel entitiled to, from the School they feel entitled to enter.
So what if Pedro actually earned his grades grades the old fashioned way - Buffy's are officially higher, they should be, they were the best that money could buy! ... Damn Minorities!
If they want to admit a certain number of qualified minority students to diversify the student body, why not? They already discriminate based on bullsh*t assays, extracurricular activities, "community service", inflated grades, whether you can play football, etc. Academics are part, a subset, of the admissions criteria. You're not entitled to admission based on good grades or SAT's. I fail to see how this person was harmed.
Sorry, I've got lab control on the brain today. That's "essays", of course.
SAT's... We have been privy to the infalliblity of SAT placements most recently and with much exposure in one of New York's best schools. Kind's makes you wonder just how wide spread this scam might be.
You ask for special emphasis on grades, SAT's? Why... because you know that can purchased on the internet?
It's not an even playing field when Money purchases the grades and exam scores.
Read it again. I didn't ask for nuthin'. I'm just saying that I agree that diversity amongst an otherwise qualified student body is a worthwhile admissions goal.
It's Obama's fault............................
There is absolutely nothing wrong with considering factors other than just raw high school grades and admissions test scores in determining whether or not to admit someone into a university. Someone may have gotten off to a poor start in high school, for various reasons and then came on strong in his or her junior and senior years. Someone may have had to work a lot during high school to help out the family, someone might have been homeless for a time. To overcome these types of things and achieve positive results is, quite frankly, much tougher than someone who grew up in a Cleaver household. There is no question that extenuating circumstances could result in someone who didn't quite get the top 10% grades, being justifiably admitted over someone who had a higher GPA. This Fisher girl sounds like a spoiled brat to me. But, not to worry Abigail, I'm sure that the current "Supreme" Court will vote 5 to 4 in your favor, you can take that to the bank.
That was Miss perfect who pointed the finger at Minority students - taking her spot, she made no claim - based on what is printed in the post - that poor White students "may have taken her spot".
The issue (her complaint) hinged, hinges on Minority students - having been given prference over her.
Did you read something different?
Considering race in college admissions is NOT a form of racism. FACTS: In the 50's and 60's, soldiers of color were denied the same financial assistance of the G.I. Bill that were given to white soldiers. As a result, these colored families were forced into poorer neighborhoods (or when they were able to live in a good "white" neighborhood, the property values significantly decreased). These poor, colored neighborhoods then were unable to provide the taxes to fund educational programs in high schools (such as Advanced Placement (AP) courses or Honors courses) to increase those colored childrens education and therefore chances in college admissions. Extra points in college admissions are added to students scores when they have taken AP and Honors courses (primarily offered in wealthy, white communities). How then, are colored students ever supposed to compare to the students who have taken the AP and Honors courses? They cannot which is why race is still considered in college admissions.
How were families that did not benefit from the G.I. Bill get "forced" into poorer neighborhoods? Unless they sacrificed to get their kids into college, which is a voluntary move on their part. When will the falsely guilt-ridden Liberals stop inventing reasons to perpetuate this AA silliness?
Excuses me while I puke. The path to mediocrity is paved with affirmative action quota kings and queens that cannot compete on a level playing field because of their own inadequacies and need to discriminate against those than can. There are already more laws to even the playing field in the USA than in any nation on earth, and if anything is "un-american" is denying the best to rise and the worst to sink. THAT's what competition,drive, ambition, and success are made of in a democracy. The reverse is communism or worsse.
Why is AA always associated with blacks who can't compete? Aren't you all the same type of people who said the Tuskegee airmen couldn't fly because they lacked the intelligence and skill and agility? Then the airmen went out there and proved you all wrong. You are the same people who instituted slavery and said that even the bible supports it? Aren't you the same folk who kept black farmers and buisiness owners from getting those start up loans so that they could have equal chance of having their business succeed. Why is it that after 500 years of slavery and another 100 of jim crowe and segregation you all can't just shut up and let AA exists - if only to wright the wrongs that were done to a people. I finished college without the aide of AA...I'm smart, educated and a contributing citizen to this great country. Open your eyes white people, blacks will never ever forget what was done to their forefathers....the wounds still run deep. Sorry, we are not completely over it yet. I would be in favor of not asking for names or race on entrance applications and just go off of GPA...but it takes more than a good GPA to be a successful humanbeing. I'd rather have a humble, smart, talented 3.5 than a loud mouth, nasty, unhappy, racist 4.0. Anyday.
Kay, I have not made that association (AA, non-competitive blacks), but I have observed it in the workplace. The vast majority of people "helped" by AA that I have had to deal with, work less, do less quality work, do more to hinder getting the job done, etc. than non AA helped people. In fact several of these people have stated out loud that nothing could be done about their lack of contributions because the parent organization did not dare do anything to hurt their "quotas". Before you object, I worked for a defense contractor with the government and my sample size is adequate to draw conclusions.