The last major decision about affirmative action was 2003’s Grutter v. Bollinger, a case about the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policies.
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The Top 10 program is inadequate, he said, because it is a blunt instrument and a product of widespread segregation in Texas high schools. If you look at the academic performance of holistic minority admits versus the top 10 percent admits, over time, they – they fare better. That assertion and her individual situation have never been tested at trial. The first time the case was heard, the justices made a narrow ruling that sent the case back down to the lower courts.
While lawyers for the University of Texas argued the merits of the Fisher vs. University of Texas case before the Supreme Court; university President Greg Fenves defended the admissions policies of the school on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and in a letter to current students.
“Colleges and universities across the nation have always been addressing questions surrounding race and ethnicity”.
The Supreme Court previously heard a case involving affirmative action at UT’s School of Law in 1996, in Hopwood v. Texas. It also notes that applicants are considered on an individual basis, rather than under a quota system.
In oral arguments on Wednesday, a narrow majority of conservative justices appeared sympathetic to the arguments put forward by Fisher’s lawyer that she was discriminated against.
The U.S. Supreme Court split bitterly on the issue of affirmative action in public universities on Wednesday, casting doubt on whether considering race in college admissions will remain legal much longer. Does the university have a “compelling interest” in diversity, and is the program aimed at reaching it “narrowly tailored”?
Either way, the case still represents potential long-term challenges for non-white students, as the Court’s more conservative justices have lent credence some strikingly racist ideas during today’s proceedings.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit again upholds the University of Texas program, saying the school had sufficiently justified its limited use of race to foster campus diversity.
Throughout the argument, it appeared at several points that Chief Justice John Roberts and Stephen Breyer appeared to be keenly aware of Kennedy’s struggle – with both of them providing evidence that they were open to working with him on finding out where he stood and how the case could be resolved in a way that would get him voting their way.
Alito in turn told Garre that he found his argument “troubling”, because it assumes that the minorities admitted under the Ten Percent Plan are not leaders, not dynamic, not change agents. “Like most Americans, I don’t believe students should be treated differently due to their race”, she said.
The university maintains a program by which the top 10 percent of students in each public graduating class are granted automatic admission; Fisher argues that this is enough to ensure diversity.
With liberal and conservative justices starkly divided, the justice who nearly certainly will dictate the outcome suggested that the court may need still more information to make a decision in a Texas case already on its second trip through the Supreme Court.
“And we have had now, for half a century, population – that the population – is the legitimate standard”, said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“Now is not the time and this is not the case to roll back student body diversity in America”, he added, in apparent reference to a recent surge of concern about racial attacks on campuses such as the University of Missouri.
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US Justice Antonin Scalia has suggested sending African American students to “less-advanced schools” that are on “slower tracks”. “Doubling the enrollment of African-American students, which happened from 2002 to 2008”, Garre replied, “is going to increase diversity in the class room”. “What unique perspective does a minority student bring to physics class?”
