Individualize Diversity In Texas

The issue with the Texas Top 10 Percent Plan and other race neutral methods is that the UT admissions staff isn’t able to pick out these students that bring a unique aspect of diversity to campus. With the Top 10 Percent Plan, admission is based solely on GPA relative to the other students in one’s high school. Even though this leads to diversity based on race, it is an ineffective means to achieve the “individualized diversity” that the University of Texas needed in order to accomplish their mission. As a result, In 2004, UT re-introduced race and ethnicity in admissions through a newly established holistic admissions system. The process began with a year-long evaluation to determine if UT had met their goals regarding diversity. After a year,

In their brief, the respondents claim that they don’t have to give clear educational goals because it is the petitioner requesting it and not a precedent set in court. However, the petitioner responds to this claim by stating: Strict scrutiny would be a nullity if UT could survive it merely by making a general claim of seeking the educational benefits of diversity without ever explaining why it needed race to do so. There would be no way for the reviewing court to verify that it is ‘necessary’ for a university to use race to achieve the educational benefits of diversity. Strict scrutiny requires a court to assess both the legitimacy of a university’s rationale for employing racial preferences and the necessity of using race to achieve

Bollinger which allowed for race to be considered in admissions if it was one of many other factors, and Gratz v. Bollinger which declared it unconstitutional to automatically adds points for specific racial identities. UT’s rationale for re-introducing race was to gain a critical mass of diversity in their school in order to better prepare their students for a future in which they would encounter diverse perspective. However, the main question in the case is not whether or not UT needs diversity in their school. It is a commonly accepted fact that students benefit from having a more diverse classroom and from hearing opinions that contradict their own. The question in this case is if the mechanism through which the University of Texas achieves diversity survive under a strict scrutiny test. The University of Texas’ holistic admission system does not survive a strict scrutiny test and is thus unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Strict scrutiny requires the University to have a compelling interest to institute affirmative action policies and the affirmative action policies must be narrowly tailored. In this case, the University does meet the condition of a compelling interest for diversity. As the respondents argued in their