Referencing an unidentified amicus brief, Scalia said that there were people who would contend “that it does not benefit African-Americans” who don’t do well in the schools that accept them under affirmative action, and that those students would be better off in the less advanced schools that they would have otherwise gone to.
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Abigail Fisher, a white woman who claims she was denied admission in 2008 because of her race, argued that the court had failed to follow the justices’ instructions, and had allowed university officials to claim without evidence that they had considered race-neutral alternatives.
Thomas, a fellow conservative, has long argued that such programs hurt minorities, including in a 2013 opinion the last time the justices took up the University of Texas case.
Alito added that the top-10 program helped underprivileged students in a way the race-conscious admissions did not.
“Like so many, Justice Scalia mistakes African-American as a proxy for low readiness, when in fact minority students in more selective colleges and universities not only graduate at relatively higher rates, but also secure high-paying jobs thereafter”.
But the university’s lawyers say that schools that have done away with similar systems have seen their black enrollment collapse – to the detriment of the institution.
Justice Scalia made the controversial comments during an oral argument on affirmative action.
Scalia was apparently making reference to a brief filed by Gail Heriot and Peter Kirsanow, opponents of racial preferences who serve on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. For the other quarter, the school reviews more than a dozen factors, including race. He said that the getting rid of a racial factor in college admissions would cause diversity in universities to “plummet”.
He and his fellow Supreme Court judges are now weighing a landmark case about positive discrimination – known as affirmative action in the US.
As with many cases before the Roberts court, attention has turned to Justice Anthony Kennedy. Maybe it ought to have fewer (black students)… In states where affirmative action has been banned, like California and MI, the percentage of minority students has dropped significantly.
It was the court’s second look at the admissions program at the University of Texas in Austin.
“Let me ask you about the 10 Percent plan itself, because it seems to me that that is so obviously driven by one thing only, and that thing is race”, The HP quoted Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg saying at the hearing. The court’s only Hispanic, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, defended the Texas program and, after listing university data supporting its use, asked Fisher’s attorney, “What more do they need”.
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Kennedy, writing for the majority at the time, said the federal appeals court in New Orleans had been insufficiently skeptical of the Texas program.
