Abigail Fisher Discrimination Case Study

Affirmative Action. For many Texas high school students, these two words haunt them. Their future, or at least their future at the University of Texas, depends on these words. For Abigail Noel Fisher, a 2008 graduate from Sugar Land, Texas, affirmative action and its race bias policies allegedly ruined her chances of getting into this prestigious state university. Fisher argues that race should not be a factor in college admissions processes, Fisher argues for equality. Equality in respect to race is in our constitution; it surrounds us everyday. In theory, race should be irrelevant in this day and age. Humanity has established that one race is not superior to another, so why should race matter at all in the college admissions process? Why should the University of Texas, or any other university, have that “check your race” box on their applications? Abigail Fisher, and every other person applying to the university, deserves as much opportunity as every other student of any race. When it comes to college, intelligence and character should be key to admission- not the color of the applicant’s skin. The University of Texas’ current affirmative action policy is an unfair college admissions process that the Supreme Court should ban so that admissions are based on intellectual ability in high school, national testing scores, extracurricular activities, and community service; this should be changed so that every person,

Being admitted into college is a difficult process, one that requires students to be diligent in their studies, engage in a number of extracurricular activities, and overcome the everyday pressures and challenges that high-schoolers face across the country. Admittedly, not everyone in the United States is born with the same opportunities as socioeconomic factors as well as historic injustices have contributed to a society in which some people are far more likely to achieve upward mobility – of which, obtaining a college degree is a necessary part – than others. While there is need to rectify this reality,

This case shows how men and women of all races can be affected by the two headed monster called affirmative action. Affirmative action was established so that members of society such women, minorities or those with handicaps would be guaranteed an honest opportunity to achieve goals, professions or pursue higher education without discrimination. However, when a person’s sex, nationality, social settings and race compete against one another even those the act is intended to protect become

Thomas Madison and Mary Hamilton are two high school seniors that applied to The University of Southern Iowa State, but were denied admission. Madison thinks that the University should consider that fact that he is gay and Hamilton believes that the school is discriminating based on race. Both applicants sue the school because they believe that some factors of the admissions process are unconstitutional.

The case known as Fisher v. University of Texas, was to chosen to be first heard by the Supreme Court in late 2012. It entails a case on affirmative action. Abigail Fisher felt that she had been discriminated against because of her race. She also claimed to have had higher qualifications than her counterparts, and therefore deserved to be admitted into the University of Texas. According to the Washington Post, the suit brought on by Fisher is the first time that the court has revisited affirmative action since its landmark ruling in the 2003

Case Summary: Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) involved a white Michigan resident named Barbara Grutter and the University of Michigan Law School. Grutter was frustrated by her rejection from the Law School, claiming that the University’s decision was due to a discriminatory admission policy which sought to enroll greater amounts of underrepresented minority students. Grutter believed that white candidates possessed a disadvantage due to this policy and she sued the university. According to Grutter, race was the “predominate factor” in selecting applicants instead of academics. She argued that the policy was unconstitutional and that it violated her 14th Amendment rights.

Another case involving the affirmative action policies was the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. This is another case of “seat holding” in where the school admission policy was reserving a number of sets for minority applicants. Bakke, a white applicant, was denied twice to the medical school. Minorities were allowed admittance with low-test scores though Bakke had high MCAT scores, GPA, and benchmarks (McBride, 2007). The result of the whole trial was that the California Supreme Court found that the system explicitly discriminated against racial groups and stated, “No applicant may be rejected because of his race, in favor of another who is less, as measured by standards applied without regard to race,” (McBride, 2007). The medical school was then ordered to shut down their quota system.

The questionable existence of affirmative action continues to create a pervasive tug of war between proponents and opponents of affirmative action. The cornerstone of affirmative action policies initiated from the U.S. Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was unequal—ultimately forever changing the system of education in America. This groundbreaking decision served as a gateway, with the goal of “leveling the playing field” and remedying the grotesque American past rooted in harsh racial discrimination against non-white individuals, primarily of African American descent. As a result of swift implementation of affirmative action policies, cultural and racial diversity quickly diversified

Bollinger [2003] , a 43-year-old white female applicant was rejected from the University of Michigan despite being in the 86th percentile nationally on the Law School Admissions Test. During the litigation, university officials admitted that Grutter would have been accepted into the school if she was African American, Hispanic, or Native American. The Supreme Court ultimately declared the law school’s policy to be legal in a five-to-four judgement because the justices believed it was “narrowly tailored” to create a diverse student body. The narrow tailoring system has been legalized but it has been put under heavy scrutiny. An admissions process can’t establish quotas for members of certain racial groups or have separate admissions tracks for different races. This loophole for affirmative action is inefficient

When addressing legal issues of diversity in the modern day era, one main topic is brought to discussion, affirmative action. It was put into place by the federal government in the 1960’s and was initially developed to close the gap in relation to the privileged majority and the unprivileged minority in America (Aguirre Jr. & Martinez, 2003). While it has been controversial since its origin, it remains controversial as critics argue it tries to equalize the impact of so many

Colleges and Universities are still trying to move beyond race-based admissions. In the case of a young woman who applied to the University of Washington who talks about her home life with her father abusing her mother and her mother abusing drugs. This essay from the high school senior impacted the readers into helping to ban affirmative action from university admissions. In February, Florida joined the growing number of states that struck affirmative action from admissions. California in 1996, voters eliminated race-based admissions policies, and the same year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did the same in Texas in Hopwood vs. State of Texas. The University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Virginia have elected to significantly reduce the role of

As a testament to the next discussion point of opportunities, especially within the realm of college admission, I have experienced firsthand the opportunities presented by affirmative action. As a low-income, first-generation college student, Virginia Tech had offered me a full scholarship based solely on merit and financial need. As a “minority” according to Virginia Tech, I had an

On April 1, 2013 on a case was brought up in the United States Supreme Court about the course of affirmative action programs to reshape or reaffirm it. African-American students at the university at the core of the case say it is crucial that their school’s admissions practices remain intact of this program. By this time the court is expected to rule in its current term on a case involving a race-conscious admissions policy at the University of Texas at Austin, where there was a white female student insists that she was passed over for acceptance at the university’s graduate school because of its policy of promoting applicants who are African-American, Latino and Asian. If the university loses the case and the admissions policy is struck down,

Affirmative action is a product of the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement and it is intended to provide equal opportunities for those who have been historically discriminated against within our society. Affirmative action policies are those that make an effort to improve opportunities for historically excluded groups within our society. When focusing on higher education, affirmative action is often referring to admission policies that have been put in place to provide equal access to education for groups that have been historically discriminated against, such as minority groups. This topic is greatly debated across college campuses within the United States. Supporters of affirmative action argue that after California Colleges in 1998 had dropped their affirmative action programs, that minority admissions had reportedly fallen. For example UC Berkeley’s admissions fell 61%, and UCLA 36% (Messerli, 2014). Critics of affirmative action argue that the policy is outdated, that we no longer live in a highly racial society, and that this policy is now causing reverse discrimination by favoring one group over another affirmative action is currently an issue not because there is extensive public outcry in support of racial discrimination, this is not to say that racial discrimination does not persist. The controversy of this issue surrounds around the disagreement about how to best fight discrimination in the current day, and whether to even recognize if

The perceived unfairness in court decisions involving affirmative action cases has cast doubt on the validity and purpose of the concept in promoting equality and combating discrimination (Hodgess-Aeberhard, 1999). In the case California Regents vs. Bakke, the state court found that special allocation of college positions to minorities contravened the Equal Protection Clause and the Civil Rights Act. In consequence, affirmative action qualifies as reverse discrimination against groups of individuals who exhibit characteristics of the former perpetrators of social injustices (Hodgess-Aeberhard, 1999). It gives undue advantage to members of the favored group who are not disadvantaged at their current position.