The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to send the case involving affirmative action at the university of Texas back to a lower court. In a 7-1 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court said that affirmative action plans should only be considered if it’s the only way to achieve diversity on college campuses. The decision will likely cause the university to come up with a plan to maintain diversity without affirmative action.
The case centers around a white woman name Abigail Fisher. Fisher sued the University of Texas after she was rejected in 2008. Fisher believed that she was turned away because she is white and stated that blacks with lower grades than hers were accepted to the school. The school defended its policy of using race-based factors to ensure diversity.
According to data released by the school, 47 students with lower test scores than Fisher’s were allowed to enter the school that year. However, only five of those students were black.
Also, 168 minority students who earned grades similar to Fisher were also rejected.
Fisher appears to be someone who has bought into the idea of “white privilege.” She never took a look at herself and her own mistakes and blamed her failures on racial biases.
Although implemented during the Kennedy Administration, affirmative action continues to be an important tool for diversity on campuses.
For example, California struck down affirmative action 15 years ago. By 1996, only 96 freshmen out of 5,000 were black at UCLA. The enrollment numbers for blacks have fallen tremendously on California college campuses since the ruling, according to a report by NPR.
Furthermore, the education gap between white and blacks is still wide. When it comes to getting hired after obtaining a college degree, whites are still more likely to be hired than blacks.
Destroying affirmative action is a severe denial that will affect generations to come.
