SCOTUS seemingly divided over University of Texas affirmative action case

About 80 percent of first-year students at the University of Texas-Austin are automatically admitted under a program that reserves places for the top 10 percent of Texas high school students regardless of race. “Really competent blacks” would win admission without such considerations, he said, and those who didn’t might be better off at “slower track schools where they will do better”.

UT responded to her brief by stating even if race had not been considered, Fisher would still not have been admitted into the University. Maybe it ought to have fewer (black students)…

“I don’t think it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible”, he added. “Competition mismatch appears to be a major factor in the low rate at which African-American students become scientists, despite high levels of interest in the sciences”.

More broadly, the arguments Wednesday revealed a Court deeply divided over instances in which race could be considered in college admissions decisions.

Scalia continued speaking at length before Gregory Garre, a lawyer for UT-Austin, had a chance to tell him that now is not the time to “roll back student body diversity in America”.

“Like most Americans, I don’t believe that students should be treated differently based on their race”, Fisher said to reporters after exiting the Supreme Court Wednesday morning.

Chief Justice John Roberts questioned the value of diversity in at least some academic settings. According CBS News, Kennedy called for additional hearings to produce information that “we should know, but we don’t know” regarding how minority students are admitted and classes they take.

The case is being heard by the Supreme Court as college campuses begin to reflect national protests against police brutality and structural racism.

Meanwhile, three of the four most conservative members of the court reiterated that they oppose affirmative action and would overturn the court’s precedent that it is allowed as a last resort to promote educational diversity. “It was important in Grutter to say, look, this can’t go on forever-25 years”.

Some of liberals warned the case could have dire consequences for diversity.

Abigail Fisher’s lawyers argue that an affirmative action system that favors students of minority races can result in qualified white students being unfairly excluded.

“They are having racial incidents on campuses where students of colour are complaining that they feel isolated”.

“What more do they need?” she asked.

In 2005 Sander published a paper purporting to show that black students who would not have otherwise been accepted into higher tiered law schools do worse in classes and are thus less likely to pass the bar exam, so affirmative action hurts black students.

But for the court’s eldest conservative, the case was as clear as black and white. “It seems to me that it is so obviously driven by one thing only, and that thing is race”, she said. “Will every school have to use the 10% plan?”

The Fisher brief states they are seeking the $100 Fisher paid for her application fee.

“Strict scrutiny imposes on the university the ultimate burden of demonstrating, before turning to racial classifications, that available, workable race-neutral alternatives do not suffice”, Kennedy wrote in 2013. There is no question.

Rein acknowledged that “it’s not easy to do”, but “it’s not our job to do it”. This assertion drew a caustic response from Roberts: “What unique perspective does a minority student bring to a physics class?”