Fisher V. University Of Texas Case Study

There is one case that intrigues me, and confusing to me as well, Tompkins v. Alabama State University (AS) (1995). In the case of T v. AS, AS was told by a federal judge that the university needed to spend more state funds for scholarships to attract white students, the university was primarily black. The judge required the university to become more diversified. Jessie Tompkins along with others filed a lawsuit against the university and its white scholarship. In 2000 AS changed the name of the scholarship, making it racially inclusive. Tompkins denied the settlement because AS could still discriminate (Legislatures, June 2016). My confusion is, most want even opportunities for everyone, but AS had to change the program so it could no longer

The Equal Protection Clause derives from the Fourteenth Amendment, which specifies “no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws…” As a part of the Reconstruction Amendments, the aforementioned clause was meant to ensure racial equality in the Reconstruction Period and has been applied successfully against the affirmative action. Introduced in United States v. Carolene Products Co., the strict scrutiny has been applied to the cases, in which a fundamental constitutional rights have been infringed or a government action applies to a suspect classification (i.e. race, religion, national background). Specifically, in regards to Bakke v. Regents of University of California, the Supreme Court (“the Court”) concluded that, considering that the University of California, Davis received several Caucasian applicants for its special admission program in 1973 and 1974 and that none of the applicants received the admission to the program since the start, the program unfairly administered in favor of minority races and, therefore, violated the rights of the white applicants under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Furthermore, from Hopwood v. State of Texas, the Fifth Circuit Court ruled under strict scrutiny that, the affirmative action imposed by the University of Texas School of Law (“the law school”) violates the Fourteenth Amendment since neither the law school nor the University of Texas system has proved a proof of

The district court’s decision to dismiss this case is based on the Plaintiffs failure to prove theory of purposeful discrimination, which is denied under Alexander v. Sandoval where the Supreme Court ruled that even if a federally funded entity knowingly adopts a policy that creates disparate impact, Title VI still affords no remedy and also because Proposition 16 is a facially neutral policy that happened to create a racially disparate impact, it holds no bearing to Title VI. The court ultimately found that Proposition 16 was created to improve ALL student athlete graduation rights. As for Pryor’s ADA claim, it too was dismissed because Pryor lacked the standing to remedy her loss of eligibility due to the fact the NCAA may still grant her the relief she seeks.

Opinion: The court ruled that the University of California's policy was unconstitutional. They argued that a state is permitted to use race as a factor, however

In 1996, the Federal Court had ruled that race could not be used as a way to determine admission to college. This case was known as Hopwood v. Texas. Hopwood claimed

There have been many cases before the United States Supreme Court similar to Mary Hamilton’s, including one that is currently pending. In an ongoing case, Fisher v. University of Texas (2012), Abigail Fisher, a Caucasian female, filed a lawsuit against the University because she was denied admission. Fisher argued that the University was discriminating in its selections based on race. The University argued that the factor of race in the admissions process was solely in the interest of promoting educational diversity. If the admissions of a school call for measures to be taken to ensure diversity, then the policies in place must be reviewed under a standard of strict scrutiny to determine if they are precisely tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest (oyez.org). In Fisher v. University of Texas, the examination of strict scrutiny was not sufficiently conducted and is going to be argued once more on December 9, 2015. In this situation, using the factor of race in an admissions process is

With the death of Justice Scalia, and recuse from Justice Kagan, the decision must be made with the 7 remaining justices. This case is said to not be original, with several precedents to it, such as Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, there are still many questions that are raised. Many wonder if this case will be the one to dismiss affirmative action amongst the university, and other universities around the nation. Since a final decision has not been made yet, I will be waiting to see what the verdict comes out to be, and how it is handled. Once the Supreme Court makes their final decision: Abigail Fisher, future students, and universities will know exactly where their future

Legal Question: The legal issue presented in this case ultimately questioned the University of Michigan’s admission policy which sought a more diverse student body. The court addressed whether the University of Michigan’s use of racial preferences in the admission process violated

The petitioner Abigail N. Fisher, who is a woman of Caucasian decent, applied to the University of Texas in late 2008 (“Fisher v. University of Texas.”). Since Fisher was not ranked at the top of her class her application was denied (“Fisher v. University of Texas.”). The former University of Texas applicant Abigail N. Fisher believes that the Institutions discriminatory admission policies was the reason she did not get admitted into the school for the incoming freshman class of 2009, even though her application was much better than many of the admitted minority students. Fisher then filed a suit case against the University arguing that the University of Texas admission policy was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states it forbids

Yes. The Fifth Circuit denied rehearing by a 9-7 vote. ‘it would be difficult for UT to construct an admission policy that more closely resembles the policy approved by the supreme court in Grutter.’ Fifth Circuit claimed that, race was just a factor among factors, and UT didn’t just admit students because of their race, but because of student body diversity enrichment.

REASONING: Justice O’Conner wrote the majority ruling for the Court. In her writing, she held that the Constitution does not forbid the narrowly tailored use of race admission process that the law school used; so that the school may obtain a diverse student body. The use of affirmative action was to reverse years of historic race bias in the United States. The use of this tailored process was a flexible, there was no quotas based on race but can use race as a “plus” factor in consideration for accepting an applicant. This was to promote a “diverse educational environment.” Though she wrote that the race-based affirmative action

The Supreme Court’s ruling did not take into account the majority opinion in Plessy versus Ferguson. Had it done so, the outcome would have been quite different. In the case of Plessy versus Ferguson, it was clear that there was some bias. Not only did it restore white supremacy but it violated the Fourteenth Amendment as well. This is because black facilities were undoubtedly unequal to those of the whites for that the white facilities were made with more quality, to say the least. Many whites were elated when the separate but equal facilities’ ruling was put into effect. For them, it was another moment to prove that the blacks were inferior. Though Kansas is not a southern state, members of the Supreme Court knew that many racists were going to be upset had the plaintiffs won. However, they did not let that hinder the outcome of the case. Because they knew what was right is right and what is wrong is wrong, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The opinion was that, “Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment…” They go on to say, “Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race… deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.” They go on to explain that to separate others solely because of race places a sense of

Brown v. Board of Education is a Supreme Court landmark case that establishes school segregation based on race is illegal. The decision that forbids segregation based on race has profound influence on Supreme Court’s later decisions. The influence of Brown also expands to affirmative actions cases, in which the standard of review was consistent with Brown’s (Strict Scrutiny). Although affirmative actions are aimed to remedy certain groups for past discrimination based on race, recent cases have illustrated that affirmative actions still have to be narrowly tailored to serve state’s compelling interest.

& Martinez, 2003). The Supreme Court ruled that the University of California was wrong in the way they approached a special admissions program that was open only to minority applicants (Aguirre Jr. & Martinez, 2003). The ruling argued that the special admissions program violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Aguirre Jr. & Martinez, 2003). Justice Lewis Powell, Jr. stated in his opinion on the Bakke case that quotas “would hinder rather than further attainment of genuine diversity” (Aguirre Jr. & Martinez, 2003, p. 141). Justice Powell, Jr. also wrote that race is only one part of many factors that an institution can consider in truly achieving a heterogeneous student population (Aguirre Jr. & Martinez, 2003). By siding with Bakke in this case, the Supreme Court essentially outlawed the use of racial quotas in admissions processes in higher education, yet universities took this as it is okay to use race as a selective factor as long as there are no quotas (Aguirre Jr. & Martinez, 2003).

In Hopwood v. Texas, Cheryl Hopwood along with three other caucasian law school applicants challenged the affirmative action program at the University of Texas Law School. She claimed that she was denied admission to the law school despite being better qualified than many admitted minority candidates. Hopwood along with Douglas Carvell, Kenneth Elliott, and David Rogers, all had better combined LSAT and grade scores than 36 of the 43 Latinos admitted, and 16 of the 18 blacks admitted (Hentoff 1). Judge Sparks ruled that the University could continue to use the racial preferences which had been the issue in the case. In the ruling, he wrote that it was "regrettable that affirmative action programs are still needed in our society", and that they were still "a necessity" until society overcomes its tradition of institutional racism (Hopwood V. Texas 1). After the four plaintiffs appealed the case, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote, "the University of Texas School of Law may not use race as a factor in deciding which applicants to admit in order to achieve a diverse student body, to combat the perceived effects of a hostile environment at the law school, to alleviate the law school's poor reputation in the minority community, or to eliminate any present effects of past discrimination by actors other than the law school"( Hopwood V. Texas 1). The University appealed the decision, but the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review, making the case the law of the land in Louisiana, Mississippi, and