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SCOTUS Upholds Texas Affirmative Action, 4-3

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G

giga

Member
Just announced. Full opinion: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-981_4g15.pdf

KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion. ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, J., joined. KAGAN, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
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Background: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...ffirmative-action-upheld-by-u-s-supreme-court

A divided U.S. Supreme Court gave a surprise victory to affirmative action in college admissions, upholding a policy that the University of Texas says is crucial for fostering campus diversity.

The justices, voting 4-3, ruled against Abigail Fisher, a white woman who said she suffered unconstitutional discrimination when she was rejected by the school in 2008.

Opponents were hoping the court would use the case to put new limits on racial preferences in college admissions. The case divided the court along ideological lines, with Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the court’s liberal wing.

The ruling came from an unusual seven-member court that was missing both Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February, and Justice Elena Kagan, who was recused because she had been involved in the litigation as an Obama administration lawyer.
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H

HylianTom

Banned
Alito is reading his dissent from the bench. As expected, he's going to be the new Scalia for the next few decades.

Should Hillary win in November, he'd better get used to this trope.
 
G

giga

Member
munguia-affirmativeaction-1.png


munguia-affirmativeaction-21.png


http://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ban-affirmative-action-in-college-admissions/
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
Reading the opinion of the court. Apparently if you are in the top 10% of your graduating class you automatically get in. Then after that a bunch of stuff is assessed with race only being 1 of the 6 and with only 1 point possible out of 6 added to your score.
 
M

my name is ed

Banned
Suck it Abigail Fisher! God she seemed like such an entitled brat. Sorry being average af didn't get you in to the state's best school!
 
J

jmood88

Member
Trojita said:
Reading the opinion of the court. Apparently if you are in the top 10% of your graduating class you automatically get in. Then after that a bunch of stuff is assessed with race only being 1 of the 6 and with only 1 point possible out of 6 added to your score.
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Yup, Fisher wasn't getting in even if race wasn't a factor.
 
P

Poeton

Member
As a recent graduate of Texas, I am all for this. I took a class about African Americans in sports and I was shocked the percentage of black people who where student athletes at UT, hopefully this will help to alleviate that skewed statistic.
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
jmood88 said:
Yup, Fisher wasn't getting in even if race wasn't a factor.
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A black American is usually going to have so many other things going against them that if they can get enough points to beat someone with just race giving them a 1+ out of 6 points, then they deserve getting in.
 
E

EatinOlives

Member
Trojita said:
Reading the opinion of the court. Apparently if you are in the top 10% of your graduating class you automatically get in. Then after that a bunch of stuff is assessed with race only being 1 of the 6 and with only 1 point possible out of 6 added to your score.
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UT actually had to make an exception and lower its automatic acceptance to below 10% (I think it's 8%?) because their capacity has remained static despite public schools expanding. Meaning they're even more selective and don't have the "luxury" of picking and choosing based on race/ethnicity.
 
J

jblank83

Member
Kite said:
lol pretty much, AA really helps white women, doesn't do much for most other minorities and really screws over Asians.
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I'm not sure you read those graphs correctly.

Minorities found more representation on college campuses when affirmative action policies were in place. As The New York Times has pointed out, in most states that have banned affirmative action, the gap between the proportion of minority representation on these campuses and the proportion of minorities in states’ college-age populations has grown since the bans took effect.

A 2013 University of Washington study found that minority students have a harder time getting accepted to public research universities in states that have banned affirmative action. Researchers looked at the effect race had on admissions and saw a 23 percentage point drop in the chance of admission for minority students in states with bans, compared with a 1 percentage point drop in other states, relative to nonminority students.
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Affirmative action is very much needed for minority students who face not only greater challenges during their formative education years but also biases during the admissions process. Both Hispanic and Black representation in university is horrifyingly low and that sort of under representation contributes to their under representation in other facets of society, such as healthcare, research, engineering, law, and politics.
 
N

NoblesseOblige

Banned
Good. And this again highlights the importance of a progressive president. Imagine if a conservative president was in power, that vote very likely would be 4-4 right now.
 
P

Poeton

Member
EatinOlives said:
UT actually had to make an exception and lower its automatic acceptance to below 10% (I think it's 8%?) because their capacity has remained static despite public schools expanding. Meaning they're even more selective and don't have the "luxury" of picking and choosing based on race/ethnicity.
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My understanding is it's a sliding scale, if they have 10,000 open spots for incoming freshman and the top 5% of Texas high school students fills the entire 10,000 spots then the bottom 5% get put into a program where they are automatically accepted into another UT school i.e. San Antonio, Dallas, Arlington, etc., which they can later transfer into UT Austin if they meet certain criteria.

They did this so they can offer spots to transfer students, like me, and to out of state/foreign students.
 
G

GurgleBot20

Member
Say Scalia was able to vote and it came to a 4-4. I take it that the ruling of the lower court would have stood? What was that ruling?
 
S

Simply Sarah

Member
GurgleBot20 said:
Say Scalia was able to vote and it came to a 4-4. I take it that the ruling of the lower court would have stood? What was that ruling?
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It was in favour of the university. It would have had the same result without creating any precedent.

As a note, when a case is in front of the Supreme Court you can almost always tell who won in the lower court by the order of the parties in the case name. With a few odd exceptions the first party is the one that asked the Court for review (and therefore lost below) and the second party is the one that won below. Again, this isn't hard and fast since cases can be odd, but the vast majority of the time it's accurate.
 
K

Kid Kamikaze10

Member
I shouldn't be happy about a person's death, but...


Beyond that, this again shows how important the Supreme Court is. Means way more than any third party candidate.
 
S

Simply Sarah

Member
Just be aware that this was a ruling on a very specific facts of this case with the majority saying the policy met strict scrutiny at the time Fisher applied. It doesn't even say that it's allowed as is in the current moment. It also involves a policy where race is a very tiny part of it, just a small part of one factor considered for admission. The opinion also makes clear that the university needs to continue to evaluate and modify their policy in regards to the use of race as conditions change. It's even more narrow than that, really.

What I'm saying is that all you can truly take from this ruling is that affirmative action isn't banned as a rule but could quite potentially be struck down in other situations where the facts are even somewhat different.
 
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