Symposium: Fisher II – Could a surprise be in store?

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Scotus

Symposium: Fisher II – Could a surprise be in store?

 

By Richard Rothstein on Sep 8, 2015 at 11:20 am

 

The blog is delighted to host an online symposium on Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the challenge to the university’s use of affirmative action in its undergraduate admissions process. Lyle Denniston discussed the issues in the case and the Court’s decision to grant review a second time in an earlier post for this blog.

 

Richard Rothstein is a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC.

 

The Supreme Court’s affirmative action decisions have been suffused with hypocrisy. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called them out, with barely more gentle phrasing, in her lone dissent to the seven-to-one majority opinion the first time Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (2013)was before the Court. “Only an ostrich,” she observed, “could regard the supposedly neutral alternatives as race unconscious,” and only a (contorted) legal mind “could conclude that an admissions plan designed to produce racial diversity is not race conscious.”

http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/09/symposium-fisher-ii-could-a-surprise-be-in-store/#more-231870

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Symposium: Getting serious about racial discrimination

By Roger Clegg on Sep 8, 2015 at 3:38 pm

 

Roger Clegg is president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity, which joined an amicus brief filed by Pacific Legal Foundation that urged the Court to grant review in Fisher II.

 

In my contribution to this symposium, I’m going to discuss how the Supreme Court should apply “strict scrutiny” to the use of racial and ethnic preferences in university admissions. I will assume here that the door will be left ajar for this kind of discrimination, but must note briefly at the outset that I think the door should be shut on it, as I discussed at more length in the symposium for Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin’s earlier trip to the Court. I noted then that there is no adequate answer to what ought to be the fundamental question in these cases:

 

“Just what is it that we expect African-American and Latino students to say to white and Asian-American students that will provide the latter with such compelling ‘educational benefits’ that racial discrimination by the government is justified to make it more likely that these conversations take place?”

http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/09/symposium-getting-serious-about-racial-discrimination/#more-231868

[Valin]

@Draggingtree

 

Good Stuff!

 

It seems to me (and as always I reserve my right to be wrong) the wrong questions are being asked and the wrong assumptions are being made.

The question should not be, how many minorities are being admitted, but how many graduate and go on the a successful career in their chosen field. Someone might get accepted to (say) Stanford on a diversity waiver, then drop out after 2 years because you can't cut it, when if this person had gone to (say) Fresno State, they might hve graduated and gone on.

 

The wrong assumption is College is the only post-high school road to a successful career....Ya know how much a plumber...a pipefitter...etc makes? One of my nieces, her husband (one of my most favorite people in the world ... ... ) makes around $85,000 a year as a plumber.

[Draggingtree]

@Draggingtree

 

Good Stuff!

 

It seems to me (and as always I reserve my right to be wrong) the wrong questions are being asked and the wrong assumptions are being made.

The question should not be, how many minorities are being admitted, but how many graduate and go on the a successful career in their chosen field. Someone might get accepted to (say) Stanford on a diversity waiver, then drop out after 2 years because you can't cut it, when if this person had gone to (say) Fresno State, they might hve graduated and gone on.

 

The wrong assumption is College is the only post-high school road to a successful career....Ya know how much a plumber...a pipefitter...etc makes? One of my nieces, her husband (one of my most favorite people in the world ... ... ) makes around $85,000 a year as a plumber.

Very well put

[Valin]

 

@Draggingtree

 

Good Stuff!

 

It seems to me (and as always I reserve my right to be wrong) the wrong questions are being asked and the wrong assumptions are being made.

The question should not be, how many minorities are being admitted, but how many graduate and go on the a successful career in their chosen field. Someone might get accepted to (say) Stanford on a diversity waiver, then drop out after 2 years because you can't cut it, when if this person had gone to (say) Fresno State, they might hve graduated and gone on.

 

The wrong assumption is College is the only post-high school road to a successful career....Ya know how much a plumber...a pipefitter...etc makes? One of my nieces, her husband (one of my most favorite people in the world ... ... ) makes around $85,000 a year as a plumber.

Very well put

 

 

 

Don't worry. I won't let it go to my head.

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The Supreme Court Could Hear Two Texas-Based Cases This Term The U.S. Supreme Court could take on affirmative action and abortion restrictions.

 

 

October 8, 2015

By Dan Solomon1 Comment

 

The U.S. Supreme Court just returned from summer vacation Monday, but there is already a lot of buzz surrounding this term. Before next summer, the justices could offer clarity on two major cases that stand to shake up laws that have been in place for decades. Both of those cases originate from Texas, and both have been simmering for years.

 

Fisher v. University of Texas

 

Fisher v. University of Texas, the case that could change or even abolish affirmative action, originated from a 2008 lawsuit brought by former LSU student Abigail Fisher. Fisher, who graduated in the top 12 percent of her high school class,

Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole

 

Although the court has yet to formally decide on whether it’ll hear the case, all signs point to it making an appearance this term. The court issued a stay on the 5th Circuit’s ruling in Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole in anticipation of its own decision.

 

At stake in this case is the state’s ability to pass strict abortion regulations that stemmed out of HB2, the omnibus bill that was signed into law in July 2013. The justices are expected to zero in on hospital admitting privileges and

 

http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/the-supreme-court-could-hear-two-texas-based-cases-this-term/

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Argument analysis: Now, three options on college affirmative action

By Lyle Denniston on Dec 9, 2015 at 2:47 pm

Analysis

The mystery of why the Supreme Court chose to take a second look at the challenge to the University of Texas at Austin’s consideration of race in choosing new students was partly solved in a prolonged hearing on Wednesday morning. The case, it would appear, now comes down to three options: kill affirmative action nationwide as an experiment that can’t be made to work, kill just the way it is done at the Texas flagship university because it can’t be defended, or give the university one more chance to prove the need for its policy.

 

The Court bored deeply into the details of the Texas policy, in a hearing lengthened by more than a half-hour beyond the scheduled sixty minutes, and marked by heated exchanges and deep emotions, especially when discussing the academic skills of blacks and Hispanics as university candidates. http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/12/argument-analysis-now-three-options-on-college-affirmative-action/

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A “view” from the courtroom: The Court takes its time on Fisher

By Mark Walsh on Dec 10, 2015 at 10:31 am

 

Anticipation is high for the last argument before the holiday break, and one of the biggest cases of the term, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin.

 

Abigail Fisher, the white student who is challenging the use of race in admissions at the university which rejected her application in 2008, is here again, as she was for the first round of arguments in her case in October 2012.

 

Fisher, now a twenty-five-year-old financial analyst in Austin, ended up graduating from Louisiana State University, which will figure in the arguments a little later. Her lawyer, Bert Rein of Washington, will tell the Court that the consequences of her “nonadmission” to UT-Austin, where her sister and father had attended, including having to go to “an alternative university.”

http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/12/a-view-from-the-courtroom-the-court-takes-its-time-on-fisher/

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How to Fix College Admissions Instead of litigating affirmative action, simply hold a lottery for all qualified applicants.

By SAMUEL GOLDMAN • December 11, 2015

 

The Supreme Court heard Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin again yesterday. Since the arguments were much the same as the first time, it’s hard to predict what the justices will do. The paradox, essentially, is that the Court has said universities have a constitutionally permissible interest in enrolling a racially diverse class, but prohibited them from using numerical quotas. So they have to design admissions policies that just happen to produce the desired level of diversity, which cannot actually be defined without violating the 14th Amendment.

 

The problem with this strategy is not that it lets in vast numbers of unqualified students. It is that universities’ commitment to maintaining a specific demographic balance without applying quotas encourages opacity, and even downright dishonesty, in the admissions process.

 

You might say: universities simply should be prohibited from pursuing racial diversity. The thing is, they’re going to do it anyway, using indirect means if necessary.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-to-fix-college-admissions/

[Valin]

 

@Draggingtree

 

Good Stuff!

 

It seems to me (and as always I reserve my right to be wrong) the wrong questions are being asked and the wrong assumptions are being made.

The question should not be, how many minorities are being admitted, but how many graduate and go on the a successful career in their chosen field. Someone might get accepted to (say) Stanford on a diversity waiver, then drop out after 2 years because you can't cut it, when if this person had gone to (say) Fresno State, they might hve graduated and gone on.

 

The wrong assumption is College is the only post-high school road to a successful career....Ya know how much a plumber...a pipefitter...etc makes? One of my nieces, her husband (one of my most favorite people in the world ... ... ) makes around $85,000 a year as a plumber.

Very well put

 

 

A “view” from the courtroom: The Court takes its time on Fisher

 

 

“There are ­­those who contend that it does not benefit African ­Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less­ advanced school, … a slower ­track school where they do well,” he says. “One of the briefs pointed out that ­­that most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas.”

As Garre seeks to interject with an answer, the Justice declines to yield. Scalia is no racist, and there is, arguably, some validity to each of the theories he is trying to propound. But neither is he politically correct, and the more he speaks, the deeper he is sinking into trouble.

 

“They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re ­­being pushed ahead­­ in classes that are­­ too fast for them,” Scalia continues. “I’m just not impressed by the fact­­ that the University of Texas may have fewer. Maybe it ought to have fewer. And maybe … when you take more, the number of blacks, really competent blacks admitted to lesser schools, turns out to be less. And ­I don’t think­­ it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible.”

 

Exactly my point.

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PART I

How an Attempt to Boost Diversity at Texas Colleges Could Kill Affirmative Action

 

by Matthew Watkins and Neena Satija | March 29, 2016

 

On Dec. 9, a lawyer for Abigail Fisher stood before the U.S. Supreme Court ready to argue that the University of Texas at Austin was discriminating against white applicants.

 

He planned to make the case that his client was unfairly denied admission into the university because of her race. And affirmative action opponents hoped that Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin would bring an end to the use of race as a factor in college admissions.

 

But less than 90 seconds into his introduction, Fisher’s lawyer was interrupted by a question about Texas’ Top 10 Percent Rule. And for much of the next hour, the justices and attorneys argued over the intricacies of the state’s unusual college admissions law, which guarantees a spot in any state college to Texans who graduate near the top of their high school senior class.

http://apps.texastribune.org/price-of-admission/

[Valin]

Remind me again why diversity is supposed to trump all.....thank you...please use small words

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The Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Confusion

 

A new decision doubles down on decades’ worth of dubious precedent.

 

By ROBERT VERBRUGGEN • June 27, 2016

In a 4-3 decision, the Supreme Court has upheld the use of race in admissions at the University of Texas-Austin. Swing justice Anthony Kennedy unexpectedly joined the liberals and wrote the majority opinion in the case, Fisher v. University of Texas; with Antonin Scalia’s death and Elena Kagan’s recusal, there were only seven votes.

 

The majority opinion is incoherent, to the point of being downright comical in places. But it is weirdly of a piece with the Supreme Court’s previous decisions on this topic—and a good opportunity to look back at the road that got us here.

 

The case revolves around UT’s complicated admissions system. Most students are admitted through the “Top Ten Percent Plan,” which allows students graduating at the top of their high-school class to attend any state-funded university they want. (Thanks to a 2009 reform, the Austin campus is now allowed to cap automatic admissions at 75 percent.) The remaining slots are allocated according to scores on an “Academic Index” and a “Personal Achievement Index.” The latter takes race into account. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-supreme-courts-affirmative-action-confusion/

[Valin]

Scotus

Symposium: Fisher II – Could a surprise be in store?

 

By Richard Rothstein on Sep 8, 2015 at 11:20 am

 

 

 

The Supreme Court’s affirmative action decisions have been suffused with hypocrisy. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called them out, with barely more gentle phrasing, in her lone dissent to the seven-to-one majority opinion the first time Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (2013)was before the Court. “Only an ostrich,” she observed, “could regard the supposedly neutral alternatives as race unconscious,” and only a (contorted) legal mind “could conclude that an admissions plan designed to produce racial diversity is not race conscious.”

http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/09/symposium-fisher-ii-could-a-surprise-be-in-store/#more-231870

 

 

And Yet

 

 

 

You can read the opinion here: Whole Woman’s Health vs. Hellerstedt. The vote breakdown is predictable: Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the opinion for the majority, and was joined by the other liberal justices, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, plus the Court’s swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy. The Court’s conservative justices, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Chief Justice John Roberts, dissented. Had Justice Antonin Scalia not died earlier this year, he would have presumably joined the dissenting judges, leading to a 5-4 decision, so that wouldn’t have been a different result, unless Scalia would have been more persuasive than the others in convincing Kennedy to join their side.