Supreme Court torn over Texas affirmative action program

Below are excerpts from arguments before the Supreme Court Tuesday over a challenge to the use of race in college admissions at the University of Texas.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in an affirmative action case with potential nationwide implications on Wednesday, and Justice Antonin Scalia kicked up a shitstorm by suggesting that affirmative action works against black students by helping them get into schools that are ultimately too challenging for them.

Plaintiff Abigail Fisher, who is white, says she was illegally denied entry because of her race and argues the 14th amendment prohibits any use of race in determining admissions.

Nonetheless, his words caused a fury outside the courtroom.

Scalia, who has previously opposed of affirmative action, claimed that helping minorities who don’t excel at high school get into top colleges “does not benefit African-Americans” because “they’re being pushed into schools that are too advanced for them”. The university admits 75 percent of students through a plan that guarantees slots to Texans who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school classes, regardless of race.

Alito suggested that the school in some way thought the students coming from the Top Ten percent were “not dynamic, They’re not leaders”.

Fisher’s lawyers argued the university’s policy favoring some black and Hispanic applicants was unconstitutional because it impermissibly considered race as a factor.

The conservatives on the bench were well aware that the case probably comes down to Justice Kennedy.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, widely considered the swing vote, expressed frustration that the Court was hearing the case once again without new information to guide it. She sued the university, saying she was treated unfairly in the application process because she is white. Gregory Garre said on behalf of the university that minority enrollment plummeted at top public universities in California and MI after they ended the consideration of race. From 2002 to 2008, the percentage of black students doubled, from three percent to six percent.Scalia questioned whether that’s so important, when the overall number of minority students on the campus remained so low.

This is the second time the case has gone to the Supreme Court.

“Race still does matter in Austin and across this country”, Garre said.

“I think the first time the Supreme Court heard the Fisher case, there was a lot more involvement – it sparked a lot of activism”, Smith said. During oral arguments on Wednesday, the justices appeared closely divided over the university’s policy, with liberals voicing support for affirmative action programs and conservatives questioning why the Texas program was needed for campus diversity.

But, Chief Justice John Roberts asked, “how do you do that?”

Scalia, however, questioned whether UT needs to increase its black student population – which now makes up about 4 percent of the student body and has not grown in a decade. “Texas’ percentage plan was adopted with racially segregated neighborhoods and schools front and center stage…It is race consciousness, not blindness to race, that drives such plans”.

December 22, 2003 – The Supreme Court rules that race can be a factor in universities’ admission programs but it cannot be an overriding factor. “Frankly”, he added, “the solution to the problems with student body diversity is not to set up a system in which not only are minorities going to separate schools, they’re going to inferior schools”. Strict scrutiny says that when the government (including a public university such as UT) employs a racial classification, that use of race must 1) serve a compelling government interest, and 2) be narrowly tailored to achieve that compelling interest.

Today we were reminded yet again that an out-and-out racist is allowed to sit on the highest court in the land.

In “competition mismatch”, students receiving large preferences are at a competitive disadvantage, tend to receive lower grades, and become academically discouraged, which can lead to switching to a less competitive field of study or dropping out of school.