Abigail Fisher v. The University of Texas

537 Words2 Pages

For the last several years, the United States legal system has been handling a lawsuit filed by Abigail Fisher against the University of Texas (What you need to know, 2013). The lawsuit centers around questions of whether and how race may be used in college admission decisions. Abigail Fisher, a white female student who applied to the University of Texas brought about a lawsuit after she was denied admission. Abigail Fisher believes that she was illegally discrimi-nated against because she was part of a group of applicants whose applications were processed using criteria that gave extra consideration to applicants that were black and Hispanic. According to the University of Texas automatic entry is not granted to any student unless they graduated in the top ten percent of their class, which Abigail Fisher did not. Abigail Fisher is arguing that the University of Texas did not use admission policies that deemphasized race in their decisions to accept or reject an applicant (What you need to know, 2013). Ms. Fisher, is suing on the basis that she believes the University of Texas violated the limits on race-conscious admissions policies that were set forth by the Supreme Court in the case of Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003. The case of Grutter v. Bollinger dealt with the policies of the University of Michigan law school. The Supreme Court ultimately concluded that colleges seek-ing to promote diversity must give "serious good-faith consideration" to race neutral alternatives to affirmative action preferences. Ms. Fisher believes that the University of Texas’s 10 percent plan resulted in sufficient enough diversity on the campus that there was no need to give any ex-tra consideration to applicants based on race. Since the results of Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003 the Supreme Court has become more conservative and more hostile towards racial preferences (What you need to know, 2013). This explains why the case has become such a lengthy process as the future admissions of college stu-dents are at stake. In June of this year, the United States Supreme Court came to a decision to send the case back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals because they felt as if the Fifth Court did not apply the strictest scrutiny to the University of Texas's admission policies (McGee, 2013). On average, most students that are admitted to the University of Texas get in based on whether they are in the top ten percent of their graduating class, there are some students that receive ad-mission based upon what the university calls a "holistic review" (McGee, 2013).

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