A new case tackling affirmative action in higher education is set to be argued before the Supreme Court this fall. The case, Fisher v. University of Texas, was brought by a white student alleging that the University of Texas denied her admission because of her race. The case, which was appealed from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, has the potential to eliminate diversity as a permissible factor used in admissions decisions, changing the precedent established by the Court in the 2003 case Grutter v. Bollinger. In Grutter, the Court upheld an affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School. The Court held that the law school had a compelling interest in promoting class diversity, and that admissions officers could consider race and ethnicity as part of a “holistic” review of an applicant’s file. The Court held that a separate affirmative action program, which incorporated a quota system, was too mechanistic and unconstitutional. The dissent argued that the “holistic” approach was itself a thinly-veiled and unconstitutional quota system. As a result of the decision, public colleges and universities could take race into account in admissions, but were not required to do so. Supporters and opponents of affirmative action have noted that the Fisher case will be decided by a much different Court than the one which decided the Grutter case. Because of the Court’s different makeup and the temporal proximity of oral arguments to the national election, supporters and opponents of affirmative action will be watching the developments of the Fisher case intently.
Author(s): Brooke P. Dolara
