The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in the landmark affirmative action case (UT) (please see our previous for more information). Four Justices will need to support UT if it and, potentially, public colleges across the nation are to continue using race and as a factor in admissions decisions. Three justices hearing the case have historically supported affirmative action. A fourth supporter, Justice Kagan, recused herself because she played a role in preparing the Obama administration鈥檚 UT-supportive . The other five justices have typically expressed doubt over affirmative action鈥檚 value. Of these, Justice Kennedy is regarded as the most plausible swing vote. A 4-4 tie would uphold the federal appeals court ruling that UT鈥檚 program is constitutional.
Justices seeming to favor Fisher questioned:
- If UT could know it had achieved a desired level of diversity without setting a target and verifying its students鈥� self-reported race; and,
- Whether an admission process is truly fair if it benefits minority students from affluent backgrounds as much those from poverty. Justice Alito Jr. said: “I thought the whole purpose of affirmative action was to help students who come from underprivileged backgrounds.”
Justices seeming to favor UT questioned:
- Whether Ms. Fisher鈥檚 suit is even legal, given UT鈥檚 statement that she would have been rejected regardless of race considerations; and,
- Why the Court should change its 2003 decision on Grutter v. Bollinger鈥斺�淎 case into which so much thought and effort went and so many people around the country have depended,鈥� said Justice Breyer.
Both sides agreed that the Court may have led colleges astray in 2003 by ruling that applicants’ race could be considered in order to assemble a “critical mass” of minority students. They said the term 鈥渃ritical mass鈥� (defined by Grutter as the sufficient number of minority students to ensure they feel comfortable speaking out, not isolated) encourages colleges to aim for some numerical threshold of minority students, but such an approach could violate the Court’s ban on college鈥檚 use of quotas. After the arguments, the esteemed offered that: “Affirmative action is alive but ailing, the idea of ‘critical mass’ to measure racial diversity is in very critical condition, and a nine-year-old precedent may have to be reshaped in order to survive.”
The Court is expected to decide the case in spring or summer of next year.