In recent years, the debate of affirmative action has reached its climax of conflict during the Supreme Court case Fisher v. University of Texas-Austin. The court case began in 2008 after Abigail Fisher was denied by the University of Texas. She sued UT, claiming that the college discriminated against her because she is white, and was in violation with the equal protection clause.
In a 4-3 ruling, the Court decided on Thursday to uphold UT’s affirmative action admissions plan, declaring that the university’s program taking race into consideration is constitutional.
In Texas, all high school students who graduated in the top 10% of their class are granted instant admission into the public university they choose. But, UT also considers various other factors such as race into their admissions process.
Fisher applied with other applicants, many of whom are racial minorities that had racial preference, and she was denied.
Fisher’s lawyers claim in court papers that UT had already established a race-neutral program, and the school shouldn’t have added another plan on top of that. Fisher, rather than asking the court to ban all affirmative action programs, only requested revision of the Texas plan.
Lawyers for UT stated that the Top Ten Percent plan was not sufficient to achieve racial diversity. They claimed that their admissions program at UT evaluated each candidate as a whole, and race was simply a factor.
Racial diversity on college campuses has been under scrutiny ever since the original fight for desegregation of American schools began in the American Civil Rights Movement. The issue lives on today in the American school system.
The problem that many racial minorities face in the school system today is racial profiling that many argue grant them less opportunity than white students to receive higher education. To counteract this discrimination, colleges have implemented affirmative action, which according to Walter Feinberg, is “intended to end and correct the effects of a specific form of discrimination”.
The use of affirmative action has been both praised for its ability to offer racial minorities greater chances at higher education that their ancestors never got, as well as criticized for reasons such as the questionability of its constitutionality.
Aiyanna Egnew, rising junior, said,” racial diversity is important in all societies. If you aren’t in a diverse society, you can be exposed to bigoted views”. According to U.S. Department of Commerce, over the past 10 years, diversity on college campuses has been on a slow but steady increase.
Kaela Goss, rising high school junior, said,”Diversity is important, affirmative action is important, not an end solution, but good for now”.
Affirmative action also arises the question: is it the end solution? Justice Anthony Kennedy stated in the majority opinion that since UT’s policy is specific to their admissions program, if change is needed upon reflection in later years, policies will be revised and updated to fit the times.
Goss commented that affirmative action is “leveling the playing field” for now, but not means to an end; more of a step in the right direction.
The latest aspect of affirmative action that makes the issue such a controversial topic is the question of whether or not college admissions should be colorblind. The argument for colorblind admissions stems from the ideal that all students should be judged primarily on merit and scholarly achievements, and that race shouldn’t matter. Should college applications have race boxes? Yasmin Celin Hakeem, rising senior, commented that there should be no race box and that,” sometimes they accept people just to fill a quota, it should be anonymous”. She also stated that,” for mixed kids, sometimes they don’t have a box, and they are forced to identify with something they aren’t”.
Hakeem also said, when questioned whether colleges should acknowledge the racial disparity that is found in many U.S. colleges,” if we don’t ever acknowledge the problem, we won’t acknowledge the solution”.
Whether the end solution is affirmative action, she does not know, but it is a step towards a more diverse campus.