On June 29th, their last day before summer vacation, the nine Supreme Court Justices declared they would hear arguments in case number 14-981, Fisher v. University of Texas, this fall, with a decision to follow in early 2016. Abigail Fisher, the plaintiff, filed her suit in 2008 after the University of Texas–Austin denied her admission. Fisher, a white woman who had failed to make the GPA cutoff for automatic admission, decided that race must have been the decisive factor. Fisher has since graduated in good standing from Louisiana State University. Nonetheless, she presses her case, which could outlaw affirmative action altogether and further homogenize the already dispiriting socioeconomic conformity of most campuses.
As the New York Times reports, should the Court decide for the plaintiff, “it would, all sides agree, reduce the number of black and Latino students at nearly every selective college and graduate school, with more Asian-American and white students gaining entrance instead.” Anyone who argues that such a decision won’t hurt black communities is being handsomely reimbursed for the trouble.
[For more of this story, written by Ted Scheinman, go to http://www.psmag.com/politics-...ates-make-less-money]
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