Finance senior Abigail Fisher became the talk of the nation when the Supreme Court announced on Mardi Gras Day that it would hear her case against the University of Texas this fall.
Fisher, a white student, claims the school unfairly denied her admission and accepted less-qualified minority applicants.
As of now, UT is legally entitled to consider race in admissions, but Fisher hopes to change that when she goes before the country’s highest court in October.
Her suit says it’s unnecessary for UT to consider race in admissions because the state of Texas already has a policy that ensures diversity on college campuses. Any Texas high school student who graduates in the top 10 percent of his or her class is guaranteed admission to a public university like UT.
Fisher was not among the top 10 percent of her class, so she was evaluated on a number of factors, including race.
Edward Blum, the director of the Project on Fair Representation, which provided counsel to Fisher, said the assertion that Fisher was denied admission in favor of less-qualified minority students was quantified through research that found about 70 minority students were admitted to UT with lower academic achievements and test scores than Fisher.
But it’s up to the Supreme Court to decide if admitting those 70 students with allegedly lesser qualifications was wrong. Political science professor Belinda Davis, who researches public policy, questioned whether it will make a splash.
“You have to show that minority applicants with lower scores than the plaintiff were admitted. OK, so they found 70,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I’m not sure that gets you very far outside of giving you the facts that allow you to state a cause of action in your lawsuit.”
The court determined some affirmative action admission policies are acceptable in the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger case, when the University of Michigan Law School argued it had “a compelling interest in diversity” among students because diversity couldn’t be achieved only through objective standards like grades and LSAT scores, Davis said.
“So obviously anywhere there’s affirmative action in play, there will by definition be minority students admitted over white students with better scores,” Davis said. “That’s not really news.”
But Fisher’s case argues the top-10-percent program is all UT needs to ensure diversity.
“The top-10-percent plan throughout Texas works extremely well in creating a racially and ethnically diverse student body,” Blum said. “That should have been sufficient for the University of Texas.”
Davis said that’s up to the court. She cited the U.S. Census Bureau, which says 37.6 percent of Texas’ population is Hispanic and 11.8 percent is black. Davis compared that to the current UT freshman class, which is 21 percent Hispanic and 5 percent black.
“Is this diverse enough, and would the student body be as diverse as it is without considering race? That is part of what the court will need to address,” she said.
Fisher eventually enrolled at LSU, where race is part of the admissions process “in only the most minute way,” according to David Kurpius, interim associate vice chancellor for enrollment management.
The only time an LSU applicant’s race is observed, Kurpius said, is during faculty reviews when students don’t quite meet admissions requirements but show promise in grade trends or special talents.
But even then, race isn’t a true factor in LSU’s decision. Because LSU doesn’t have a limitation on how many students it can admit — as UT does — the decision is more about whether the student is right for LSU than bringing more minorities to campus, according to Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions Lupe Lamadrid.
Kurpius said the University does seek out increased diversity by recruiting at high schools with high-performing minority populations.
But the national spotlight is now on UT and Fisher. She has remained tight-lipped amid the attention, declining to speak to the press.
Blum said Fisher’s lawsuit “requires an enormous amount of courage and commitment” because of the sensitivity that surrounds race and affirmative action. He said Fisher and her legal team realized accusations of racism might come with the suit.
“Abby knew that was a possible consequence of her activities,” he said.
But Blum said Fisher has taken the attention in stride.
“Abby has lived the last four years of this litigation as a well-balanced, academically successful, engaged LSU student,” he said.
 
 
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Contact Ryan Buxton at [email protected]