Supreme Court maintains affirmative action in admissions

The Supreme Court ruled Monday morning on Fisher v. University of Texas, a case concerning affirmative action policies. 

The court has decided to vacate the decision of the Firth Circuit and remand the case to be retried. The suit, brought by Abigail Fisher—a white student who was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin’s class of 2008—challenged the legality of the school’s admission policies which explicitly consider race when assessing applicants.

A 7-1 decision, in the majority opinion delivered by associate justice Anthony Kennedy, the court stated that, though it is legal to use race as a factor in the college admissions process, both the policy and its implementation must meet a standard of “strict scrutiny” and is “subject to judicial review.” Because the Fifth Circuit court did not take this into account when assessing how  the university’s policies are put into action , the Supreme Court has demanded that it be tried again. The Court cited Grutter v. Bollinger and Regents of University of California v. Bakke, two previous cases regarding the use of race in the admissions process, as a basis for the current decision.

The plaintiff, Fisher, who had an SAT score of 1180, out of 1600, and a grade point average of 3.59, claimed she was not accepted to UT because she is white. Fisher, along with fellow applicant Rachel Michalewicz, filed a lawsuit against the university in 2008 on the grounds that both students were rejected because of race. The suit was taken to the district court, which ruled the University of Texas’s admissions policy was legal, and appealed to the Fifth Circuit court, where the district court’s ruling was upheld.  Michalewicz dropped the suit in 2011. 

Duke University along with a number of other private universities jointly filed an amicus brief in 2012 supporting UT’s view that race be permitted as one of the many factors that determine an applicant’s admission. The brief requested that the Court further consider the arguments to uphold affirmative action practices.

“We’re always trying to create a class that is both talented and diverse,” Guttentag said in an October interview with The Chronicle. “Talent alone and diversity alone are not what we’re looking for. We want both, and race is a factor in that diversity.”