Abigail Fisher from Sugarland, TX, did not get admitted to University of Texas, Austin despite having a 3.59/4 GPA. She dreamed of bleeding burnt orange since she was a tiny tot, especially since both her dad and sis bled burnt orange as well.
UT automatically accepts the top 10 percent from any high school if they apply for admission and Abigail was not in the top 10 percent. Beyond the top 10%, the University applies several conditions on who it will admit, including racial mix. UT rejected Abigail's admission and she filed suit against UT for racial discrimination.
She finally landed at Louisiana State University, where she graduated, enjoying her undergraduate years with no perceivable misgivings and got back to Austin to work as a financial analyst.
And that's when she thought, hmm...maybe I could have landed a better job if I had been a UT grad and leveraged the network of UT grads. So she sued against UT's affirmative action policy, a case that came up today in front of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court had ruled in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger that the University of Michigan could use race in adjudicating admissions. Fisher's lawyer Bert Rein tried to do an end run in his arguments opining that there would be no need to reconsider that decision but, perhaps, the ruling could be revised to narrow the use of race as a factor in admissions policy.
Justice Sotomayor cut to the chase quickly:
But Rein said the "odious classification" of race should be used narrowly.
"So, you don't want to overrule, Grutter, you just want to gut it," Sotomayor shot back, prompting Rein to say, "Excuse me?"
Sotomayor reiterated: "You just want to gut it. You don't want to overrule it, but you just want to gut it ... Now you want to tell universities that once you reach a certain number, then you can't use race anymore."
Sandra Day O'Connor, who wrote the 2003 ruling is no longer on the bench, having retired. Justice Samuel Alito Jr., her replacement, opposed affirmative action at his university, Princeton. Justice Anthony Kennedy was the dissenting vote on the 2003 ruling. What is at stake now is whether the Supreme Court will revisit the 2003 ruling and what shape any new ruling will take. At the heart appears to be whether there is unfairness involved in using race as a factor in admitting students for racial diversity when the top 10% criterion itself tends to have sufficient racial diversity included.
This is one to watch since Sotomayor got fiesty right off the bat and could give the conservatives on the bench food for thought.
Update 1: Abigail Fisher is not monied enough to bring this case forward. She is financed by Edward Blum, fellow at American Enterprise Institute, as part of his continuing crusade against affirmative action