Virginia V. Texas, The Supreme Court Upheld The Constitutionality Of Special Admissions Programs

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,

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

This case involves the Plaintiff, Kelly Pryor, and the Defendant, National Collegiate Athletic Association, in a complex argument that involves racial discrimination under Title VI and the NCAA adoption of Proposition 16 as well as Americans with Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation claims. The court must carefully consider the claims Pryor has brought forth and determine if the discrimination of Proposition 16 was purposefully adopted by adding certain education requirement to ultimately hinder the amount of scholarships awarded to incoming black student athletes. Throughout this case analysis, I will weigh the different evidence presented from both parties and report the court’s reasoning for decisions made in Pryor v.

In the years since, interpretations of these laws by the U.S. Supreme Court has defined how affirmative action policies are to be implemented. The Court has held that affirmative action policies are Constitutional wherever it can be shown that ""¦ there has been a clear history of racial discrimination" (United Press International). In 1978, the Court ruling in Regents of University of California v. Bakke defined the concept of 'reverse discrimination' by holding that slots for medical school admissions could not be set aside for minorities, because it could result in admitting less qualified candidates based on racial quotas. In 2003, in Gratz v. Bollinger, the Court defined the concept of 'individualized consideration' when it declared that an undergraduate affirmative action policy at the University of Michigan was unconstitutional because it focused on the race of applicants rather than their

Racial preference has indisputably favored Caucasian males in society. Recently this dynamic has been debated in all aspects of life, including college admission. Racial bias has intruded on the students’ rights to being treated fairly. Admitting students on merit puts the best individuals into the professional environment. A university’s unprejudiced attitude towards race in applicants eliminates biases, empowers universities to harness the full potential of students’ intellect, and gives students an equal chance at admission.

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

To add diversity, the University of Texas decided to modify its race neutral policy. Now the university would use race for admission decisions. The University of Texas continued to follow the rule that the top ten percent of high school students would be automatically admitted into UT. This rule accounted for 81% of 2008 's freshman class. The other 19% of applicants could still be admitted by good GPA, high-standardized test scores, family conditions, leadership, and race (FISHER v. UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS).

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

Abigail Fisher and Rachel Multer Michalewicz were just two young women from Texas trying to get into their dream school. In 2008 the young women applied at the University of Texas. The two women, both white, filed suit, alleging that the University had discriminated against them on the basis of their race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Equal Protection Clause being a clause that allows no state to deny any person within its jurisdiction “the equal protection of the law”.

Plaintiff – “The plaintiff is defending a nineteen-year-old Latino male who was admitted to UMCP in the fall of 1989. As an applicant to UMCP, claimant had an accomplished scholastic record: his Scholastic Aptitude Test score was 1340, out of a possible 1600; his grade point average as calculated by his high school was over 4.0 (as calculated by UMCP, his grade point average was 3.56); and he actively participated in several extracurricular activities.” (Podberesky v. Kirwan, 956F. 2d-52- court of Appeals, 4th Circuit 1992, 1992) Because of his academic pedigree, the Hispanic male wants to be considered for admittance as well as university scholarships. The scholarship that he would like to be considered for is for African American students until it was revised to include minority students.

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education (2007) are cases regarding the use of affirmative action programs in schools. In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court ruled that the use of affirmative action in universities is constitutional in certain circumstances, but racial quotas are unconstitutional. In Grutter v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court ruled that the use of affirmative action in school admission is constitutional if race is treated as one factor among many, the purpose is to achieve a “diverse” classroom, and it is not an individualized review of the applicant. In Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education,

Creating a subterfuge enables colleges to use race as a factor in admissions without the harmful side effects of a publicized system. By creating a subterfuge in which admissions decisions are left up to colleges, and race does not “enjoy a dominant position,” the problems stated in Thomas’s dissent are solved as long as colleges are given the freedom and trust to make just decisions without interference (Sabbagh). This solution creates a dilemma as it risks the possibility of unchecked power in the college admissions staff. However, this risk is an acceptable one in order to reach the ultimate goal of

According to Grutter, the phrase narrowly tailored refers to the act of good faith when deciding an applicant’s admission status, as it requires the board of admissions to look at all race-neutral methods that will aid in diversity among the student body. By using a narrowly tailored scope, it ensures that racial prejudice cannot occur, and this is important when discussing the strict scrutiny as it is meant to eradicate any illegitimate uses of race while furthering government interests (Grutter, 10). Prior to the implementation of the admissions program used race as a factor in their decisions process. However, the school phased out that method, and instead, began to use a more race-neutral method in which it does not admit applicants based

& 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).

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