Supreme Court to hear Texas affirmative action case

Feb. 21, 2012
Supreme Court to hear Texas affirmative action case
Michael Doyle | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a politically charged challenge to affirmative action at the University of Texas.

The court's decision gives conservatives another chance to reconsider the use of race in college admissions, and further drives the court into the middle of the 2012 presidential campaign.

"It is time for the court to take another look at this area of the law," Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Joshua P. Thompson declared Tuesday.

The court is already preparing to hear a challenge to the Obama administration's signature health care law.

By adding the affirmative action challenge to its blockbuster docket, the court will also spotlight the significant differences between former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and the man who replaced her, Justice Samuel Alito. In 2003, O'Connor led the narrow 5-4 majority that upheld the University of Michigan Law School's use of race in admissions.

"The (Constitution) does not prohibit the law school's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body," O'Connor wrote.

Alito, who replaced his fellow O'Connor in 2006, has voiced more skepticism about the merits of affirmative action. The case called Fisher v. the University of Texas at Austin will give Alito and conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., who was also not on the court during the 2003 University of Michigan case, a high-profile opportunity to recast the majority.

The Texas case arises from a challenge initially filed by Abigail Noel Fisher, a Caucasian woman who applied as an undergraduate to the University of Texas for the class entering in the fall of 2008. Because she was not in the top 10 percent of her high school class, she was not guaranteed admission under the state's college policy.

"She instead competed for admission with other non-Top Ten in-state applicants, some of whom were entitled to racial preference as 'underrepresented minorities,' attorney Bert Rein wrote in a legal brief. "Although Ms. Fisher’s academic credentials exceeded those of many admitted minority candidates, (Texas) denied her application."

Fisher's attorneys argue her rejection, and the preference given minority applicants, violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

A trial judge and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, in a sharply divided opinion. Following the guidance of the 2003 Supreme Court decision in the 2003 Michigan case, the appellate court noted, Texas "evaluates each application using a holistic, multi-factor approach, in which race is but one of many considerations."

"The current policy has produced noticeable results," the 5th Circuit decision noted, observing that the enrollment of African-American students doubled from 165 students to 335 students between 1998 and 2008.

ON THE WEB

Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/fisher-v-university-of-texas-at-austin/