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Affirmative action opponents petition Supreme Court to review UT case

The University of Texas is once again embroiled in a possible Supreme Court case involving affirmative action in their admissions process. As the Austin

Jul 31, 202048K Shares787.5K Views
The University of Texas is once again embroiled in a possible Supreme Court case involving affirmative action in their admissions process. As the Austin American-Statesman reported, lawyers have filed a petitionon behalf of a student who’d applied to the school, asking for the Supreme Court to review the UT’s consideration of race in undergraduate admission decisions.
“If any state action should respect racial equality, it is university admission. Selecting those who will benefit from the limited places available at state universities has enormous consequences for their futures and the perceived fairness of governmental action,” lawyers argue in the petition to the Supreme Court.
In 2008 the Washington-based Project for Fair Representationfiled a lawsuit on behalf of the same student, Abigail Fisher, and her co-plaintiff Rachel Michalewicz, alleging that UT violated their 14th Amendment rights by using race in rejecting their applications, while minority students with lower grades were admitted.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks rejected the argument in that case, writing that the University’s policy was narrow enough in supporting “ a compelling governmental interest,” and therefore constitutional. An appeals court upheld UT’s use of race in their admissions policy this year, according to the Statesman, and the case even drew a brief from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Fisher’s suit is just one of many cases across the country brought by the Project for Fair Representation and dealing with affirmative action. Founded in 2005, the firm led Founded by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum in 2005, According to Texas Tribune.
Blum, a visiting fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, was also a senior fellow from 2002-2006 at the Center for Equal Opportunity, which “supports colorblind public policies and seeks to block the expansion of racial preferences and to prevent their use in employment, education, and voting,” according to its website.
Before that, Blum drew controversy for his work as president of the Campaign for a Color-Blind America Legal Defense and Educational Foundation, which was highly critical of the City of Houston’s hiring practices. He also worked as a trader at the brokerage firm Paine Webber, which did business with the city. Houston Mayor Bob Lanier’s criticism of the company for employing Blum led to Blum’s resignation.
The case has brought up discussion of another affirmative action case involving Texas. In 1996 Cheryl Hopwood, an applicant to the University of Texas, law school filed a lawsuit against the state for the inclusion of race in the admission policy. The 5th Circuit ruled against UT, and the Supreme Court declined to review the decision essentially ending affirmative action in admission to public universities in Texas.
Texas Attorney General Dan Morales issued an opinion extending the decision to all state schools, which led to the so-called top ten percent rule in 1997, which granted admission to all students ranked in the top tenth of their high school class to all state-funded universities.
Then in 2003, the University of Texas announced it would reintroduce the inclusion of race in the admissions process, “modifying its policies”to comply with recent Supreme Court rulings to “produce even greater diversity” with a combination affirmative action and “top ten percent” policies.
Rhyley Carney

Rhyley Carney

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