Supreme Court Case: Abigail Fisher V. University Of Texas

In 2008, Abigail Fisher, a white female, applied for admission at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1997, Texas passed legislation which guaranteed all students who graduate in the top 10% of Texas’ graduating class, admission to all Texas state-funded universities, regardless of other factors. Fisher did not qualify for Texas’ “Top 10%” with a GPA of 3.59 and an SAT score of 1180, but applied for general admission in the top 12% of her class. At the University of Texas, about 75% of admissions are comprised of students who qualified as Texas’ “Top 10%”, and 25% of admissions are based on several factors including, but are not limited to, grade-point average, extracurricular activities, and race. When Fisher was denied admission, she enrolled

District Court judge, Sam Sparks, who upheld the university’s use of race when deciding admissions under the precedent of Grutter v. Bollinger because the university’s use of race was found to be narrowly tailored. When the decision was challenged, the case was heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the district court’s ruling was affirmed. When Fisher challenged the decision, the case was heard by the Robert’s U.S. Supreme Court which decided that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had erred by not applying the test of strict scrutiny to the University of Texas at Austin’s decision to base some of their admissions on race, and so the case went back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard the case again, they decided that the university’s admission policy based somewhat on race was narrowly tailored to the objective of promoting educational diversity. Currently, the case Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin is pending a decision by the U.S. Supreme

The equal protection clause dictates that the Federal government must grant, “the equal protection of the law” to all U.S. citizens. Through this clause, affirmative action was developed, but only under certain circumstances; for a law dealing with discrimination to be upheld, it must be reasonable, must further a state objective, and must be a compelling state objective. In the case Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the debate is whether or not promoting educational diversity is a compelling state objective.

The use of race in college admissions is found to be unconstitutional. Up and until this point in time, the court has generally ruled that promoting educational diversity is in fact a compelling state objective, but in today’s America, educational diversity has been established and is thriving. In this day and age, using race as a factor in college admissions is not needed. The Fourteenth amendment ensures the equal protection of the law to each and every citizen. We may not discriminate in order to promote