A federal lawsuit was filed today against the University of Texas by a white high school senior, alleging that UT’s race conscious admissions process unlawfully denied her a place on the Austin campus next fall.
According to a press release from the Project on Fair Representation, UT violated the Constitution and federal civil rights statutes by unnecessarily using racial and ethnic factors in making freshman admissions decisions.
Abigail Noel Fisher, a senior at Stephen F. Austin High School in Sugar Land, seeks to have the university re-evaluate her application under “race-neutral criteria.”
According to the press release:
The present lawsuit claims that Top-10 Percent Plan is a successful race-neutral program that forecloses UT-Austin from considering a student’s race or ethnicity in admissions and that the University failed to consider and take advantage of alternative race-neutral means of achieving “diversity” prior to implementing their racially-discriminatory policies.
As you may recall, a Fifth Circuit decision in the 1990s prohibited UT from using race to make admissions decisions. Subsequently, the Texas legislature fashioned the “Top 10 Percent Law” which guaranteed the best performers from each high school would be admitted. Since the Top 10 Percent Law did not fill all openings, UT would award the remaining slots by considering a number of non-race factors, including the high school record, classes taken, test scores, and personal achievement (such as extra curricular activities, awards, work experience and community/school service).
In 2004, the US Supreme Court ruled that instituions could consider race in admission only if race-neutral criteria failed to achieve the desired student body diversity.
This lawsuit claims that UT officials immediately jumped on the Supreme Court decision and quickly re-instituted consideration of race into admissions decisions - despite the fact that the race-neutral process the school had used before 2004 had more than adequately served the purpose. It is this resort to race-based policies - when race neutral policies were sufficient - that the plaintiff claims violates federal law.
The complaint contains an interesting historical discussion of admissions policies at UT, and includes a statistical analysis designed to show that the pre-2004 race-neutral policies were working, so there was no justification for UT to rush back into race-based decisions. The complaint can be read here.
Of course, Ms. Fisher is certainly not the only person to be affected by UT’s determination to utilize race in making admissions decisions. Toward that end, the Project on Fair Representation invites other potential discriminiation victims to contact it at www.utnotfair.org. Readers are invited to spread the word about this effort to rebuff the social engineers at UT and require them to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
BENZION ADDS– LST is especially happy to announce that this lawsuit (and The Project on Fair Representation generally) are the brain-children of Edward Blum, last seen riding off into the D.C. sunset after fighting the good fight in Houston over Proposition A in the late 1990’s.
This living, breathing cliche of neoconservativism (i.e., a Jew hatching diabolical public policy schemes from his perch at the American Enterprise Institute) is back here in Texas, ensconced in Austin, and (hopefully, at our every urging,) planning a future campaign for governor.
The Lone Star State is better for it.
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Good luck to her.
Or, why not just go out of state? It’s probably a lot cheaper…
1. CM
She was admitted - and awarded scholarships - at LSU (you like that, don’t you?) and Baylor, but apparently had her sights set on UT-Austin.
I hope she wins too!
Good for her. I get tired of seeing all those scholarships that are for one race or another (but never for the caucasian race). Why is it racism if there was something only for white people but not if there is something only for blacks, hispanics, asians, native Americans, etc.?
#2 I got my master’s from LSU, but it is worthless (but still root for LSU football). I got my 2 bachelor degrees from Mississippi State (enjoyed it much better).
Generally, though, Louisiana and Mississippi have some of the least expensive higher education in the south. With high enough test scores you can get out of state fees waived.
5. CM
If you had kept going north, you might have made it to Oxford and THE university in Mississippi.
Sorry, couldn’t pass up the chance to rib a Bulldog.
I met Ed Blum back in the 90s and was very impressed, but I didn’t know what had happened to him. Glad he is back in Texas.
bug-splat voting districts….priceless.
#6 Hotty Toddy this! lol Actually there is sign of intelligence in Oxford: the sign that says “Starkville 115 miles”. lol
I respect Houston Nutt and hope he turns that program around.
Why not just go to A&M? Most Conservative public university in the nation. Founding university of College Republicans. No weird/liberal t.u. and no liberal/weird Austin. And you don’t have to wear orange - Maroon and White look so much better. And you don’t have to be exposed by proximity to the dangerously high level of Gov’ment Bureaucrats.
#1 Cajun —
No offense, but that isn’t the point. The student may have been the first to push the issue, but she certainly wasn’t the first to be harmed by the policy. Either the policy needs to be fairly enforced (truly race-neutral), or it needs to be scrapped along with the educrats who persued its application.
– Ken
Can anyone tell me when such policies will be scraped and the best student, no matter what race, gets in? What level determines and who will know when enough is enough? At the rate we’re going, we will be dumbing down “higher education”. It’s no wonder our schools lag behind in comparison to other countries because we dumb down everything and our standards are lower. The “PC” police have said everybody needs to pass, no matter how dumb they are.
#10 No offense taken. I agree that if people want us to be “color blind”, then it should truly be color blind and not make admissions to try to make the student body mirror the population. I’ve seen top 10% students from their respective schools get accepted with relatively low ACT/SAT scores.
Robert M - I’ve been teaching public high school for 15 years. Only at one school could I give a Six Weeks Grade lower than a 50… Even if the kid earned less. Lefty/Socialist in Austin keep telling everyone that it helps the kid keep their self-esteem up and gives them a chance to salvage their grade the next Six Weeks Grading Period. I can tell you from those 15 years in the classroom, the odds of a kid who actually earned a grade of 27% is EXTREMELY unlikely to “salvage their grade”. Only once in 15 years have I seen it done.