Diversity

On Monday the National Women’s Law Center and 22 other women’s organizations urged the Supreme Court to affirm the constitutionality of UT-Austin’s race conscious admissions. The Court will hear Fisher v. UT-Austin in early October, considering the constitutionality of race-conscious admissions to forward diversity in higher education for the first time since Justices Roberts and Alito joined the Court. (Justice Kagan is recused from the case, meaning that it will be decided by the remaining eight Justices. If the Justices split 4-4, the decision below, upholding UT-Austin’s admission plan, will stand.)

UT-Austin fills most of its freshman class through its Top Ten Percent Plan, under which the top ten percent of the graduating class every Texas high school is automatically entitled to admission. The remainder of the UT-Austin class is filled based on consideration of individual students’ academic credentials and personal experiences and qualities, including, in some instances, race. As the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held last year in upholding the constitutionality of the plan, UT-Austin carefully crafted this process to comply with the Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, which held that consideration of race in public university admissions could properly forward the compelling interest in diversity in education. But those challenging UT-Austin’s consideration of race argue that the Top Ten Percent plan produces sufficient racial diversity at UT-Austin and that the university thus does not have a compelling interest justifying its consideration of race as a factor in filling the remainder of its entering class. Read more »