U.S. Supreme Court Upholds UT-Austin’s Affirmative Action System

“If even this program survives scrutiny, it is extraordinarily hard to believe that the court will be prepared to strike down any university’s affirmative-action program anytime soon”, Driver said. This decision affirms numerous principles we outlined in our amicus brief last November, and it reinforces that MIT and other higher education institutions can continue to fulfill their educational missions by building richly diverse student bodies.

In both the 2013 and 2016 written decisions, the Court reference two notable cases of precedent for affirmative action, both involving Columbia’s very own Lee C. Bollinger.

“As this Court has said, ‘ Justice Kennedy wrote in his ruling, ‘enrolling a diverse student body ‘promotes cross-racial understanding, helps to break down racial stereotypes, and enables students to better understand persons of different races”‘. The Fisher decision should rekindle conversations around increasing the number of minority, low-income and first-generation students who attend college, and how colleges can partner with high schools in getting them there, she said. He was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

Contradicting the Court’s decision, Justice Samuel Alito pointed out that UT failed to convince that the institute’s policy of giving admission to all students in the top-10 percent of their high school graduating class did result in creating diversity, especially considering the state’s high schools are already divided into racial or ethnic groups, Patch reported. “We follow the law so any student that graduates in the top ten percent of their graduating class has automatic admission at Texas Tech”, Hansard said. He said he felt the university had relied “on a series of unsupported and noxious racial assumptions”.

The decision to uphold the earlier ruling is considered momentous for the affirmative action movement, with President Obama voicing his approval to reporters at the White House.

Affirmative action has been and still is legal.

Attorney Bert Rein (L), speaks to the media while standing with plaintiff Abigail Noel Fisher (R), after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in her case.

University of Texas at Austin President Gregory Fenves said he was “thrilled and gratified” by the ruling.

As the University of Texas and its supporters successfully argued to the Court, the college education experience allows students from a variety of backgrounds and experiences to live and work together in a variety of settings.

Abigail Fisher, a white woman who was denied admission to the university, brought the case in 2008, the grounds that she was discriminated against in the admissions process because of her race. In fact, the justices held that the University of Texas should remain vigilant and “engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection regarding its admissions policies”.

The decision came as a surprise to many following the case.

Justice Elena Kagan recused herself because of her involvement with the case during her tenure as Solicitor General. In reviewing UT’s policy, the Court determined that, “there is no dispute that race is but a factor of a factor of a factor in the holistic review calculus”, in denying Fisher’s discrimination claim.

The university says its race-based selection policies are necessary to maintain a diverse campus community. MI is one of eight states that has forbidden the consideration of race in college admissions.