Abigail Fisher v. Texas University

Twenty-two year old Caucasian female Abigail Fisher sued the University of Texas in 2008 because she claimed that the university did not admit her due to her ethnicity. Fisher’s lawsuit around collegiate affirmative action policies has now been appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.  Arguments for this case began just this past October.

Affirmative action is a policy where race, gender, origin and sexual orientation are all weighted before accepting people into a workplace or an educational facility. The purpose of this policy is to benefit minorities and allow them opportunities in education and careers. Fisher claims that the school violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. She argues that less eligible minorities were accepted in her place because she is white. 

The University of Texas upholds a policy called “The Top Ten Percent Plan” where they accept students in the top ten percent of their Texas high school in academic performance and college entrance exam scores. After those students are chosen, further acceptances are not based on race, but it is regarded in the decision for official acceptances. The school claims Fisher was denied because she did not meet the school’s academic requirement with her SAT score of 1180. 

Here in California, Proposition 209 was passed in 1996, which says that race and ethnicity cannot influence the admission process. Studies have shown that through the ban of racial and ethnic influence, diversity in University of California colleges has increased. In other words, there is a larger amount of minorities present in colleges today.

If Fisher wins, affirmative action will be deemed unconstitutional, when it was originally justified to promote cultural diversity in the Supreme Court. Supporters of affirmative action believe that it does give universities the opportunity to diversify and minorities the opportunity to attend college. Others may question the justification of whether it is right if a student with better grades and test scores than another student should be denied a place in college because of race.

The University of Texas upholds the motto "Disciplina Praesidium Civitatis," which means that “education is the safeguard of democracy.” Through this controversial case, we can only hope colleges stay true to their values, achieved only through the practices that stand for the common good of students and the future of the world.