On Thursday, June 23, 2016, the United States Supreme Court held that, as a way to increase diversity within the student body, the University of Texas at Austin’s admissions office may consider an applicant’s race. In writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy noted the importance of a university’s ability to create programs that will best benefit its students. Furthermore, a university should be given considerable deference to define themselves through “intangible characteristics, [such as] student body diversity, that are central to its identity and educational mission.”
The University of Texas at Austin has a two-part admissions system. First, the School offers admission to any Texas high school graduate in the top 10% of their class. The remainder of the University’s student body is chosen through the School’s secondary review process. Under this system, a student’s SAT score and high school academic performance are combined with a “Personal Achievement Index,” which consists of numerous factors, including race. When the University adopted this admissions system, it hoped that the additional factors for consideration would enable the School to reach its goal of providing its students with the educational benefits of diversity, since a race-neutral system did not.
The case, Fisher v. University of Texas, challenged the second part of the admissions system. Abigail Fisher, a Caucasian woman, claimed that she had been denied admission to the University because of her race. She argued that the University’s admissions system allowed the School to treat its applicants differently based on their race; however, the majority found these arguments unpersuasive, agreeing with the University’s statement that the admissions office only used race as a “factor of a factor of a factor of a factor.”
Justice Alito delivered an impassioned dissent from the bench, arguing that the University had not demonstrated the need for race-based admissions. He claims that the University’s goal of diversity, and its reasons for wanting diversity in its student body – destroying stereotypes, promoting “cross-racial understanding,” and preparing students “for an increasingly diverse work force and society” – were beyond judicial scrutiny.
The Supreme Court’s decision does not mean that all university affirmative action programs are constitutional. The decision states that a university may consider race as one of many factors in order to create a diverse student body, but does not touch on other instances in which race may be considered. While this decision is considered a major victory for affirmative action supporters, the Court’s opinion is narrowly tailored to the specific system used at the University of Texas at Austin, leaving plenty of room for future claims.