The American Council on Education (ACE) expressed similar sentiments, saying it was “extremely gratified” by the ruling in what was described as a “broad statement” from the council’s president.
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“The educational benefits of diversity for all students enhance The University of Texas at Austin, the higher education community, and the nation”, Fenves said in a statement.
“We are not a country that guarantees equal outcomes but we do strive to provide an equal shot to everybody. And that’s what was upheld today”.
Kennedy was joined by liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer.
The opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy – who never before voted in favor of a race-based affirmative action program – and a stinging dissent by Justice Samuel Alito mirror the nation’s deep divide over affirmative action, which the court has blessed twice before, in 1978 and 2003.
The sixth, the University of Kansas, operates on a slightly different index system that requires a higher GPA, a higher SAT score or, in some cases, a higher ACT score. “This is nothing less than the plea for deference that we emphatically rejected in our prior decision”. “Today, the Court has decided in a way that is nothing less than a blow for equality under the law”. During the last major affirmative action case, he dissented.
Justice Kennedy’s opinion said that universities must periodically revisit their diversity efforts to make sure they’re not giving race more weight than they should.
On Thursday, the decision was made in a 4-3 opinion from the justices. Justice Elena Kagan recused herself due to her prior position as solicitor general during which she had worked on the case. “The one incentive they had was socio-economic affirmative action was a legal way of producing racial diversity, and now I think the Supreme Court has reduced that pressure”.
Despite Thursday’s reprieve, traditional affirmative action using race-conscious admissions has been losing ground for years.
“The decision itself is written quite narrowly, and tailored to the UT program specifically”, he added. The states are Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.
Students in Texas who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class are guaranteed automatic admission to all state-funded universities. It uses other factors including race to admit the remainder.
Becky with the Bad Grades, a reference to the phrase “Becky with the good hair” from the song Sorry by Beyonce, spread like wildfire. She was denied admission.
In Fisher’s first case, the Supreme Court ruled that the lower courts were too deferential to school administrators and were required to look more closely at the evidence.
Attorneys with the Project for Fair Representation, the non-profit representing Abigail Fisher in court were not available for comment. While Texas chose to include race as a factor, Texas A&M opted for a program that aggressively recruits first-generation students from lower-income families. If colleges define diversity as more than just race, then the diversity will come in the variety of students that are accepted on other qualifications, he said.
By the time a college gets to an application to even possibly consider race, “you’ve probably already lost the battle” in recruiting those (students), she said. This decision reaffirms that universities may use race and diversity among other factors in making their admissions offers. For Hispanics, the numbers grew to 20% in 2008.
Advocates had feared that the court might rule that there was no longer a place for affirmative action in college admissions.
Kennedy, who is often the swing justice, held that UT could continue to use race in a holistic way when considering applicants.
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The University of Texas-Austin.
