Avoiding any major ruling on the hotbutton issue of affirmative action in school admissions, the Supreme Court on Monday sent the case Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The narrow ruling essentially tees up the issue for the court to reconsider next year, when it will review another affirmative action case.
In a seven to one opinion, the court argued the lower court used the wrong standards to evaluate the Texas college's admissions policies. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority that the Fifth Circuit should not have given UT Austin as much deference on the matter of whether its limited approach to racial considerations met the standard set by the Supreme Court in 2003. That year, in Grutter v. Bollinger, the court rejected the use of racial quotas but said that schools could consider race as part of a "holistic" review of a student's application.
That precedent, Kennedy wrote, "does not permit a court to accept a school's assertion that its admissions process uses race in a permissible way without closely examining how the process works in practice."
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, writing that she would affirm the Fifth Circuit's ruling that upheld the Texas program. "The University's admissions policy flexibly considers race only as a 'factor of a factor of a factor of a factor' in the calculus," Ginsburg wrote. Justice Elena Kagan, meanwhile, recused herself from the case.
Read more http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162...lds-off-on-major-affirmative-action-decision/
In a seven to one opinion, the court argued the lower court used the wrong standards to evaluate the Texas college's admissions policies. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority that the Fifth Circuit should not have given UT Austin as much deference on the matter of whether its limited approach to racial considerations met the standard set by the Supreme Court in 2003. That year, in Grutter v. Bollinger, the court rejected the use of racial quotas but said that schools could consider race as part of a "holistic" review of a student's application.
That precedent, Kennedy wrote, "does not permit a court to accept a school's assertion that its admissions process uses race in a permissible way without closely examining how the process works in practice."
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, writing that she would affirm the Fifth Circuit's ruling that upheld the Texas program. "The University's admissions policy flexibly considers race only as a 'factor of a factor of a factor of a factor' in the calculus," Ginsburg wrote. Justice Elena Kagan, meanwhile, recused herself from the case.
Read more http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162...lds-off-on-major-affirmative-action-decision/