For the past 13 years Abigail Fisher has been fighting the University of Texas in Austin and the Supreme Court because she feels that she was wrongly discriminated against when she applied for the university in 2003. Fisher believes that she was not allowed admission solely because she is white and is against the schools affirmative action policies according to her primary statements in the Supreme Court case. There have been multiple claims over the years that universities are corrupt; using affirmative action policies to benefit their financial status rather than to benefit minorities and give people equal opportunities. Fisher has told interviewers following the case hearing that “like most americans [she does not] believe that students should be treated differently based on their race. Hopefully [the] case will end racial classifications and preferences in admissions at the University of Texas.” The 13 year case has gained the publics attention and has raised suspicion on whether or not colleges are in fact favoring minorities and discriminating against the white population.
However, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the majority of white students who have applied to a university over the past 10 years have been consistently accepted much more often than other races such as hispanics, pacific islanders, alaskan natives, american indians, and people of mixed races. With the exception of Asians, the white population receives more college acceptance letters each year than the vast majority of other groups of people.
Court documents show that Abigail Fisher graduated from high school with a 3.59 GPA and a score of 1180 on her SATs. Matthew Casim, 16 year old studying at NSLC’s music production program, feels that race does not matter nearly as much as qualifications. “If a white person qualifies they should be admitted based on that rather than focusing on the fact that they are not a minority.” Casim says that Fisher was rejected reasonably based her lack of meeting the qualifications to be admitted into UTA rather than based on race and supports UTA.
On the other hand, 21 year old Lee Martin, a team advisor at NSLC, feels that affirmative action is positive. “It helps to help people who don’t have advantages.” She expressed her opinion by saying it is highly advantageous to people who may have low incomes or lack things such as family support or an environment which would enable a student to thrive. However, Martin supports UTA because she feels that Fisher was not rejected based on race. “Affirmative action doesn’t mean only admitting students based on race, but is choosing the minority when deciding between two applicants of equal qualifications.”
Over the years the term “reverse racism” has gained much popularity throughout the white community. The term is used when someone who is white feels that they have been discriminated against and feel as though restrictions or criticism on their race have increased. Zeba Blay, a journalist at the Huffington Post, expressed her opinion on the matter in “4 ‘Reverse Racism’ Myths That Need To Stop.” by stating that “some people simplify racism as one group not liking another, and think “racist” and “prejudiced” are interchangeable. But racism is a concept that operates on both an individual and institutional level.”
NSLC Psychology and Neuroscience student CJ Haberbush, age 17, made the argument that affirmative action is justifiable “so long as [the student] meets the requirements, not based on ethnicity alone because it defeats the purpose of trying to eliminate discrimination. Of course diversity should be an important aspect of everything but merit should be the ultimate deciding factor.” Haberbush voiced his perspective on racial diversity in relation to college society proclaiming its relevance and that it should in fact be recognized in a celebratory aspect in order to unify americans but that it should not have a huge bearing on admissions.
Anthony Flores, Music Production student in NSLC who is 16 years old, expressed negative feelings towards affirmative action because he proclaimed its policies to be unfair. In his opinion, universities assume a persons situation based on their ethnicity or location but have no knowledge of their actual situation. When discussing admission forms having a box to classify students by race, he said that the box should be removed because “race doesn’t matter when it comes to being the best applicant.”