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I felt the same way when our school district insisted on taking their case to the US Supreme Court. Didnt change anything. Wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars.</p>
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[Supreme</a> Court punts on affirmative-action case](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/supreme-court-punts-affirmative-action-case-141850745.html]Supreme”>Supreme Court punts on affirmative-action case)</p>
<p>“Did the state of Michigan violated the Equal Protection Clause by amending its state Constitution to prohibit affirmative action?!?!”</p>
<p>If I read the Appeals Court decision correctly … and that’s a big assumption … the Court ruled that the effect of the law was to prohibit a minority group from advocating for itself (politically). That effectively disadvantaged this one minority group, because it alone was prohibited from advocacy. ORMs could advocate that they deserved more spaces. But not URMs.</p>
<p>I agree, a modest victory. I do expect that there will be with future cases, a continued restriction of AA, with the courts putting more pressure on schools to justify or limit it.</p>
<p>I’m with Poetgirl. I don’t know why they took the case. What a huge waste of time. It could go back and forth between the courts. </p>
<p>There is another such case looming on the horizon, and SC may feel that one gives them more to work with.</p>
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<p>Since there are about 2 1/2 years left in Obama’s term, and since the Democrats are arguably the majority party at present and thus slight favorites to occupy the White House after that, (and since they are more supportive of affirmative action than Republicans and will nominate like-minded judges), I am less sanguine about the future.</p>
<p>Bel - Less sanguine about the future? I have to disagree. AA is going away, replaced with admissions approaches that admit a balanced class without even having a “Race” checkbox on the application. The Supreme Court is trying to speed this process up, and I’m OK with that. The sooner this time and resource wasting exercise “to eliminate AA” concludes, the better.</p>
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But the majority opinion says that it isn’t tightening Grutter, just enforcing it. The fact that there was only one dissenter says to me that this wasn’t much of a victory for anybody.</p>
<p>From the UT prez:</p>
<p>[Supreme</a> Court returns Fisher case to Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals « Tower Talk](<a href=“http://blogs.utexas.edu/towertalk/2013/06/24/supreme-court-returns-fisher-case-to-fifth-circuit-court-of-appeals/]Supreme”>http://blogs.utexas.edu/towertalk/2013/06/24/supreme-court-returns-fisher-case-to-fifth-circuit-court-of-appeals/)</p>
<p>"Next up, Fisher sues the State of Texas claiming that the use of district boundaries to assign students to schools has denied her the opportunity to compete for a Top Ten Percent slot by precluding enrollment at a high school “where I would be a top student.” "</p>
<p>That will never fly. Some kids leave our high school to go to smaller, lower performing schools to better their standing. Ms. Fisher could have done the same. Nothing was preventing her. The bottom line is that she did not measure up to her peers, nor to many of the students admitted…check the test scores.</p>
<p>Belia, the SC has already accepted to hear another AA case.</p>
<p>“Ginsburg was exactly right - without segregated housing and segregated schools, the 10% plan doesn’t work.”</p>
<p>Not to mince words too much, but there are not segregated schools and housing in Texas. We have poor neighborhoods and wealthy neighborhoods, and we have schools that are predominately this or that race…but segregation is not allowed. It doesn’t matter what race you are, you can live wherever or go to school wherever. People just don’t. And because they don’t, the 10% rule (or in UTs case, the 8% rule, or whatever it is this year) works pretty well.</p>
<p>Our particular high school, which is average-competitive has a racial demographic that is pretty representative of the state - maybe a little heavy on the Hispanic side. I think that’s more the rule than the exception in the state, except for those regions where the racial demographic is very skewed, i.e. in the Valley, or in inner city.</p>
<p>Such a silly decision. </p>
<p>SC - Yo, 5th circuit court, look at it more carefully. Did you read everyline?</p>
<p>12 months later circa - 2014 September</p>
<p>5th circuit - yo big dudes what the heck were you guys talking about? We read everyline this time around. Stop wasting our dang time. Our decision from 2011 is fine and dandy yo. The white girl ain’t good enough and could not attend classes at UT if she brought her own table and chair everyday. </p>
<p>Tell those no good lawyers to find someone better for a poster child. Can’t they find some kid with 2200 score from a top private school to sue?</p>
<p>Only for gator88NE. this is what the headline said in chronicle.</p>
<p>"Want to smell like Manziel? One cologne maker thinks it has figured out a way to bottle Eau de Aggie. Get your best A&M jokes ready and see what the manufacturer thinks is the university’s signature scent. "</p>
<p>[Texas</a> A&M cologne gives wearers opportunity to smell like an Aggie - Houston Chronicle](<a href=“Texas A&M cologne gives wearers opportunity to smell like an Aggie”>Texas A&M cologne gives wearers opportunity to smell like an Aggie)</p>
<p>I wonder if this case is fully remanded and if it will be retried entirely. In such case, it should quite easy for UT to define its position and present more compelling evidence that they did not violate current laws, and that the new scrutiny “rule” was and will be met. </p>
<p>If Blum and his cohorts see this as a victory, it might be quite Pyrrhic, if UT seizes this opportunity to drastically amend not only its holistic admissions (which favor the majorities) but also its entire ten percent plan. </p>
<p>It would be nice to see drastic restrictions imposed on the number of automatic admits by limiting the PERCENTAGE of students from each Texas school from the 7-10 percent originallly culled. In simple terms, that would mean that the ten percent is the first cut, but that if school XYZ is disproportionally favored and becomes “too strong a feeder”, the number is lowered to 6, 5, 4, or 3 percent. The current plan only works because so few students from perennial URM schools do NOT use their auto-admits, while higher SES schools send massive numbers of their auto-admits to the flagships schools. Redefining “critical mass” is a double-edged sword!</p>
<p>The maximum auto-admits should also be reduced further to never surpass 50 percent.That should teach them to … mess with Texas! ;)</p>
<p>^ yep, auction off about 25% seats to OOS and Internationals and cut instate tuition to half!</p>
<p>Clearly, the case was a loser from the start. Fisher has already lost at the lower levels. A sudden win will be most unlikely. The only real question is how the case ever made it in front of the S. C. to begin with. I pray the Justices are above influence, but what about the clerks who assimilate and condense all the information for the benefit of the Justices? Did a few sneaky clerks conspire to get the case heard? Let’s call this one conspiracy Monday.</p>
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<p>If some groups value going to UT Austin more than others, I don’t think that is necessarily a social problem to be solved. If you devote too many of your admissions slots to social engineering, the academic reputation of your school will fall.</p>
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<p>What the decision says is pretty clear to me: ‘Circuit V, your analysis/application of the law was wrong. Rework it and decide again…’</p>
<p>A 7-1 vote for a do-over does not a conspiracy theory make. :)</p>
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<p>Who is talking about social engineering? Your position seems to be based on the illusion that those “slotted” students only get into UT because of social engineering. They are admitted because they did well in their environment. </p>
<p>The current plan exists for a reason --a good one-- but is has remained a work in progress for the reasons I expressed above. If you have any idea about the education system in Texas, you would know where the complaints originate. Do you think students in the Valley, in Corpus Christi, El Paso, or Lubbock spend their time crying wolf? Nope, all the complaining voices come from the fancy suburbs and from the new bastions of education. Those voices would like to see even more of the DD and DS make it at their entitled school, and by doing so blatantly ignore the demographics of Texas in 2013.</p>
<p>Simply stated, we do not have a problem in that more of the Abigail Fisher feel above getting into UT via the CAP system and decide to join a lower school a la LSU. Our problem remains that students who are eligible to go to Austin do not do it because it is economically or socially feasible. </p>
<p>It is about equity and justice.</p>