<p>Youdon’tsay - I believe it is only 62% or so at this point covered by the 10% law and so they have gone to down to 7% this year.</p>
<p>However, from what I know the holistic process only covers a very small number. The rest of the seats are used for accepting OOS/International students and athletes. OOS/International students are a pretty high percentage and make a lot of money for UT. The seats are in so much demand that someone who got into Emory as a full pay internationally this year could not get into UT business school.</p>
<p>Considering the groups that “picked” her for their agenda, it must have been hard to find a more compelling case (read better student) AND someone who wanted to associate with such groups. One needs a Teflon suit to rub elbows with that slime.</p>
<p>Regarding the case, it is quite surprising that the University of Texas did not present a more spirited defense. The school is probably still in shock that such a weak case against them was still in dispute. In a way, they should have enlisted the help of the many private schools that stand to be the next targets of the cases in Texas and Michigan --and probably were the real targets of the racist conservatives.</p>
<p>Of course the 10% has played a role in the case, as this “should” have helped the university meet it’s diversity targets, but then it used race as part of the “holistic” process. The lawsuit is targeting the “holistic” portion, and it’s allowing the court to revisit Grutter (if it wishes too…). </p>
<p>Personal attacks aside, this isn’t an easy case to resolve. The key question is when does a University reached a “critical mass” and no longer needed to consider race in admissions? Who decides? If the court comes up with a ruling, this is the question it will be deciding.</p>
<p>I still don’t see how this plaintiff has standing to object to the admissions policy when UT says (convincingly) that her stats wouldn’t have been good enough even under a totally race-blind system. If she wasn’t going to get in under the system she wanted, then she wasn’t harmed by the system that existed.</p>
<h2>Chief Justice Roberts tries to avoid highly partisan 5-4 decisions, because he feels it reflects poorly upon the Court over the long-term. The more limited the decision, the more likely he is to get a larger majority in the decision.</h2>
<p>The selective universities are all in competition for the most highly qualified minority students. Some are finding that they are accepting high percentages of qualified minority applicants, but they are choosing to go to other colleges that offer larger amounts of aid. In addition to some preference in admissions, there also is apparently a financial aid war to increase minority student enrollments.</p>
<p>If you find that calling out the few conservatives who adopt an agenda that attack the few “advantages” of minorities as the racists they are a personal attack offensive … so be it. What should be offensive is the fact that those racists are trying to undo the few positive steps in our education system, and by doing so, tattoo all the conservatives who do not share such agenda with the same shameful sign. </p>
<p>The best defense available to UT would be one based on projecting the impact of abandoning the 7-8-10 percent rule on the Texan suburban and rural schools. If there was a strong desire to meet the diversity “targets” and more closely match the population distribution on Texas, the school could easily accomplish that with a 100 percent holistic review.</p>
<p>Calling folks who oppose AA “racist” is just as absurd as those who call people in favor of AA racist against Asians. Argue the merits without the labels if you are confident in your position.</p>
<p>Hmmm. . . . In Grutter the Court upheld the use of race as a factor in admissions so long as the school didn’t use a quota. What I surmise from the SCOTUS blog account is that in the Fisher oral argument, the conservative Justices demanded that the university’s lawyers explain what a “critical mass” is and how they would know when it had been reached, and further hinted that the university shouldn’t get to decide that on its own without judicial supervision. In other words, there should be some judicial standard or formula for determining when a “critical mass” has been achieved. Maybe I’m missing something, but that just sounds like a backhanded way of imposing a quota–except it will be the courts, not the universities, making that determination.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets thrown out on standing grounds. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Justice Kennedy bolted from the conservative majority on this one. He likes to be the decider. And I thought the odd alignment on yesterday’s vote to uphold routine DNA sampling of anyone arrested smelled like some old-fashioned horse-trading. Justice Breyer joined Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion along with 3 conservatives (Roberts, Alito, and Thomas), while Justice Scalia joined 3 liberals (Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan) in dissent. I think Scalia’s opposition to DNA testing is genuine; there’s a part of him that is deeply civil libertarian. But Breyer and Kennedy aren’t beyond trading votes to get what they want. So Breyer goes along with Kennedy on DNA testing, and Kennedy votes to uphold affirmative action in some form, or maybe just to throw out the Fisher case on standing grounds?</p>
<p>I labeled the people who are behind the Texas and Michigan cases as racist conservatives. This is not an indictment of all conservatives. Just the few who give conservatives a bad name by attacking the mostly helpless. </p>
<p>Feel free to disagree with my assessment, or ignore my comment.</p>
<p>As far as the case itself, it would be a shame that a decision of the SCOTUS that could have plenty of unfortunate repercussions that go beyond public education could be reached on eight votes only. And I doubt that the SCOTUS has not considered the best mechanism to avoid having to decide this case sin Kagan.</p>
<p>Per post #37- 42 out of the 47 applicants who allegedly had a lower score index were white. If so, there goes the racial discrimination argument.</p>
<p>The big loser is the state of Texas. Big conservative money is paying for Fisher. Who is paying the attorney’s for Texas. Yep the taxpayers. (PS I know there’s no income tax).</p>
<p>It’s playing out that the 10% is probably an unbeatable states right issue and the non 10% appears to be geared more toward the poor than to race. The Supreme court needs to quickly uphold the decision of the district court and go on to bigger and better business. Fisher is a good awful conservative power play that’s starting to read like a bad John Grisham novel.</p>
<p>I did not say the holistic process for these seats favors only the minorities but that is the gist of the lawsuit. </p>
<p>The goal also includes taking care of people from really tough schools where kids with high scores do fall below 10% and kids with great accomplishments outside of classroom can be recognized etc.</p>
<p>I’ve also been following this on the SCOTUS Blog. In the live blog from this past Monday morning, they cited some basic statistics about how the opinions have been divided this year and that there is a high likelihood that Justice Kennedy is writing this opinion based on his limited announced opinions. Per Amy Howe’s previously cited link from the SCOTUS Blog (from Gator 88NE), this is likely to result in a narrow opinion which won’t completely overturn AA. </p>
<p>This is one of the interesting turns of history where Rehnquist’s desire to remain on the court has had a significant effect. He knew that both he and SDO were planning on retiring within a similar time frame. He felt that GWB would have significant difficulty appointing 2 justices in a short time frame and encouraged SDO to announce her retirement first, citing her desire to spend more time with her husband who was beset by Alzheimer’s. This would allow him to remain on and reach his personal goal for tenure as a Justice/Chief Justice. Unfortunately, he died from his cancer shortly after SDO announced her retirement and she was unable to remain. The really sad thing is that by that point, her husband didn’t really know her anymore. So many things would have been different had she been able to remain on the Court as she has remained mentally acute. Certainly, her views on this issue are completely different from Alito who took her seat.</p>
<p>Yes, you should read “The Nine,” which is really a lot about SDO and how she changed as a justice, and how the courts and justices always seem to change over time. We see the same thing, these days, with Kennedy.</p>
<p>Loved “The Nine.” I’m getting ready to start Toobin’s “The Oath” soon, which is his latest. He has an interesting article in The New Yorker about SDO and her regrets/disappointments (despite being adamant during her latest book tour appearances that she had none and never looked back). It’s linked in his tweet of May 7, but I won’t post the link here for fear I may be spanked for linking to something with political views.</p>
<p>Decisions are announced at 10am ET on Mondays and the live blog on the SCOTUS Blog website gets hopping at 9:30 with the orders that are announced 30 minutes before decisions are announced. Lots of big cases coming up during these last 3 Monday mornings, so there is a possibility that the Court may add additional opinion days the last week of June. Fisher is the opinion that has the biggest anticipation right now since it has been the longest time lag since argument.</p>
<p>Well, I read the entire transcript of the arguments and agree some vigor is missing, on both sides. OTOH, some of the protocol allows for all the interruptions and overtalk by the justices. Must be fascinating to watch live.</p>
<p>My understanding of the origins of the 10% mirrors texaspg’s comment about balancing opportunities for kids form “tough” schools. Ie, making a form of a level playing field among all individual TX high schools, not just one mass of kids competing against those from better resourced schools. Auto admit also reduces significantly the amount of holistic review work required. The second round then becomes a chance to hand pick presumably worthy kids who didn’t make the first cut. </p>
<p>I also thought Verilli opened the idea the court could review what critical mass is, offer guidance. I thought that it’s a matter of more of the traditionally under-represented kids having the empowerment opportunities that come only with greater numbers, not the role of, in effect, “spokespersons” (Garre.) In that respect, “critical mass” is (oops, here’s my word again) qualitative. Subjective.</p>
<p>But, the issue of SES diversity among minorities, the admission they might just take a high SES minority to balance things out within that identity group- there are so many better ways that could have been worded, to represent not wealthy minorities, but kids with leadership, accomplishment, bridge building, etc.</p>
<p>No matter what the Fisher decision is, the AA issue will remain a hot topic because the Court granted cert in the Schuette case in March which is another Michigan case challenging a ban on the use of AA. I suppose that case will be argued sometime this fall. Barring something unforeseen, that outcome will be interesting in that it will be heard by all 9 justices.</p>