Writing in opinion of the court in the case of Fisher V. University of Texas at Austin (II). This case had been previously heard by the Supreme Court resulting in a 7-1 decision that explained the University had no grounds to apply any preference to racial minorities in the application or the acceptance process. The case was reopened at both the fifth circuit court and the Supreme Court. There will be seven justices presiding over this case, with the death of Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Elena Kagan recusing herself. The question of making admission decisions on the basis of race had been debated before in the Supreme Court, in the case of Grutter v. Bollinger. The University of Michigan Law School had denied the admission of Barbara Grutter, a white female. The Law School admits that it uses race as a factor in making admissions decisions because it serves a "compelling interest in achieving diversity among its student body." The court ruled in favor of the University of Michigan, because no single factor eliminated a certain applicant from being denied admission and race was seen as a factor that would help diversity in the law school. This case was referred to in the discussion phase of this hearing. In the case, the plaintiff accused UT at Austin of racially discriminating against her in the application and acceptance process. Under the first application procedure that lasted up until 1997, two factors were taken into consideration, the applicant’s performance in
Two more cases that aroused much debate on the issue were the 2003 cases of Gratz vs. Bollinger and Grutter vs. Bollinger, in which two more-than-qualified students applied to the University of Michigan and were denied due to acceptance policies. The two women, Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter, took their cases to the Supreme Court with the plea that the University of Michigan is “treating people differently based on skin color, and that is unconstitutional” (Mears). The university openly stated that they have a point system in their acceptance process in which students receive extra point if they are of minority status. Mary Sue Coleman, the president of the University of Michigan stated, “[W]e
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
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
In this particular case I find the matter of Fisher v. Texas case I find that the University of Texas should not be able to continue on with their policy. Even though Abigail Fisher applied and was not apart of the top 10 percent of her class, she was still a very competitive applicant. Considering the fact that she was ranked 82 out of her senior class 674 she was still at the top 12 percent of her class. Her application surplused most of the other minority students admitted in the second round of admittance. Abigail Fisher's should have been considered a contender as part of the University of Texas’s freshman class of 2009. She believes she was well prepared and would be able to succeed at the University.
In the Supreme Court case Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin multiple individuals played a vital political role. The plaintiff Abigail Smith sued the defendant the University of Texas after being denied admission. She believed that the school was racially discriminating against her after finding that the university had accepted students of racial minority with lower grades and test scores. The university president, Bill Powers proclaimed in defense," We remain committed to assembling a student body…that provides the educational benefits of diversity…while respecting the rights of all students…” (Williams, McClam). With a 4-3 ruling the Supreme Court decided that the use of affirmative action in university admissions decisions was in fact
There are two recent lawsuits from 2003 that brought to the forefront college admissions using race; these include Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger (Bowman, 2013). Both cases involve the University of Michigan. In Grutter v. Bollinger, the court sided with the university stating that their admissions office can continue to use race-based initiatives in fostering an education benefit to the students (Bowman, 2013).
Allan Bakke was denied admission to be considered to University of California-Davis Medical School. In offer to be accepted, a student must have no less than a 2.5 GPA, have good science grades, and have high MCT scores, letters of recommendation, and numerous extra-curricular activities. If all of their prerequisites are met, an applicant then must participate in an interview with the college. Bakke scored 468 out of a total of 500 points on his interview and was not accepted. He then applied again the next year and received 549 out of 600 points, but was again turned away. Afterward Bakke had found out that 16 students with lower test scores were accepted before him. All 16 students were considered ethnic minorities and were accepted based on their color of skin, as allowed by the policies of affirmative action. Bakke took his case to the Supreme Court, arguing he was not treated equally and was turned away because of his ethnicity. The Supreme Court found that in the case of the University of California Regents v. Bakke, the defendant’s equal protection rights were indeed violated.
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
Resistance to affirmative action has existed from the time it was introduced (Allen, 2011; Kaufmann, 2007), and in many instances, the U.S. Supreme Court has played a crucial role in determining the extent to which it can achieve its original goals (Zamani & Brown, 2003). One of the earliest cases to challenge the use of affirmative action was DeFunis v. Odegaard (1973), of which the court found the University of Washington Law School’s use of race in admissions to be unconstitutional (Platt, 2007; Zamani & Brown, 2003). The law school was accused of having separate admissions procedures for students of color by giving less weight to their predicted first-year averages. As such, DeFunis argued that underqualified students of color had been
was unconstitutional. Her point of view is the same as to many of those against affirmative
The ban was decided based on the result of two court cases Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger in which the three students that challenged the University of Michigan's Law School for denying their admission application; the school used different subject factors in making admission decisions with racial and ethnic minority applicants being favorable as it helped the school's mission of student diversity.
In the article, "Finally Getting it Right on Affirmative Action” by Charles Krauthammer, Krauthammer discusses various facts that lead to the consistent disagreement: Should universities take race into their admission process, also known as, “Affirmative Action.” Krauthammer opens the article by discussing a case in Michigan, where the Supreme Court banned affirmative action. The state of Michigan held a referendum from discriminating against individuals based on race on any citizen.
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
The best method for selecting college applicants is by academic achievements. It is simple, objective, and is the most sensible. It is logical to accept the highest-performing students because they can benefit the most. Affirmative action disrupts this by giving minorities a preference based on their race and not ability. This creates the possibility of a minority being selected over a more qualified “non-minority”, or a student being rejected simply for not being a minority, something that has happened before. A notable instance of this was Fisher v University of Texas, 2013, where student Abigail Fisher sued the school after her application was rejected. Fisher alleged that she was turned down due to the fact that she was white and not a minority. Although the court ruled against her twice, the high-profile case