Fisher v. University of Texas: Predict the SCOTUS decision

[mokusatsu]

<p>Fisher wins 5-3.</p>

<p>Opinion of the Court by Kennedy (joined by Roberts) distinguishes/narrows Grutter, but does not overrule it.
Scalia, Thomas, and Alito join result but rant that Grutter should be overruled.</p>

<p>Outside chance that Court dismisses petition as improvidently granted (which it was, because they granted cert to overrule Grutter, and then realized that that wasn’t a good idea).</p>

[Beliavsky]

<p>

@lookingforward

Texaspg makes what I think is a very relevant point. If the goal is increased opportunity/diversity/empowerment for URMs, and there is a problem in getting admitted minorities to attend UT, then the flaw extends beyond admission practices, themselves. There could be said to be a de facto discriminatory issue if, eg, the finaid isn’t there.

</p>

<p>Should any business selling high-priced goods be mandated by the Federal government to provide financial aid so that nearly equal fractions of various ethnic groups buy its products?
I don’t see how the Federal government can mandate a specific pricing structure for public colleges, except that the price charged should not depend on race.</p>

[mokusatsu]

<p>

Btw, anyone have an idea why this was not brought as a class action suit?

Class actions are usually about aggregating small damage recoveries into a big pot to justify the attorney’s labor.
The attorneys here are interested in ideology, not attorney’s fees.</p>

[NewHope33]

<p>“Should any business selling high-priced goods be mandated by the Federal government to provide financial aid so that nearly equal fractions of various ethnic groups buy its products?”</p>

<p>Absolutely not! Which brings me to an perfectly neutral admissions policy that solves all these problems at once. UTexas sets minimum admission stats at a level any college student should meet … say 2.5 GPA and 18 ACT. UTexas charges ALL Students the actual cost of education … say $50,000 per year. Financial aid is supplied in the form of a 100% non-refundable tax credit. Abigail Fisher is in, taking the admissions slot of the next Thurgood Marshall. Perfect!</p>

<p>(What do you think the freshman class might look like under this approach? I imagine a lot like the Harvard class of 1950 … except bigger.)</p>

[TatinG]

<p>Just read all the threads here that start “do I have a chance to get into X college even if I’m Asian”. They feel they are being discriminated against.</p>

[NewHope33]

<p>I think the PoetGrl and mokusatsu are on point. I can’t imagine Chief Justice Roberts announcing “So long as the UTexas admissions policy allows even one white applicant to be denied admission in favor of a minority student with lower stats, the admissions policy is illegal.”</p>

<p>BTW, how would one determine what “lower stats” means? Basis for the next lawsuit I guess.</p>

[Gator88NE]

<p>@Lookingforward</p>

<p>Thats the issue in this case, Texas admitted to using race as part of the holistic admission process. That was the “paper trail”. If UT hadn’t admitted to giving “points” for race, as part of the “personal achievement” score, this wouldn’t be an issue.</p>

<p>Most universities that use holistic admissions, don’t claim that race is one factor (like the essay or ECs), only that diversity (which includes SES, race, left handed folks, whatever) is something they try to take into account. Nice and vague…</p>

<p>It’s interesting to note that the “GRUTTER” ruling, lead to UT making the changes to take into account race as part of the holistic admission process. Before GRUTTER, it wasn’t a factor.</p>

<p>BONUS!</p>

<p>The original UT proposal, with lots of references to GRUTTER. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/about/admission_proposal.pdf[/url]”>http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/about/admission_proposal.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[cromette]

<p>Significant findings in comparing Texas A&M, the other flagship,which holds to the top 10% rule, and also comparing demographics of Texas and the US.</p>

<p>The percentage of students at TAMU who are Asian (5%) is in line with the US population and slightly higher than the Texas population. The percentage of students at UT who are Asian is 18%.</p>

<p>The percentage of African American/Blacks in the US is 13.1%, Texas is 12.2%. TAMU’s admit rate is 3% and UT’s is 5%.</p>

<p>The percentage of students at UT who are Hispanic is more closely in line with the national demographic. 18% to 16.7% respectively. The percentage of students who are Hispanic at TAMU is significantly higher than UT’s but still much less than the Texas Demographic. 24% to 38.1% respectively.</p>

<p>The percentage of students at UT who are White is 46%, while Texas’ demographic is at 44.8%. The percentage of students at TAMU who are White is 69%, while the national demographic is 63.4%. </p>

<p>Given that UT admits more Asians than are represented in the state OR the national demographic, and certainly more than Texas A&M, and more White students than are represented within the state of Texas demographics, I don’t think it can really be said that Whites and Asians are treated as second class citizens.</p>

[austinareadad]

<p>cromette, I see you corrected it. Nevermind.</p>

[lookingforward]

<p>admitted to using race as part of<br>
And so do many schools. Part of. Not exclusively and with disregard to all other factors. And, they are in good company, with regard to this. Harvard’s amici brief includes an urging: </p>

<p>“to continue to allow educational institutions to structure admissions programs that take account of race and ethnicity as single factors within a highly individualized, holistic review process.” Such programs consider many factors, including whether an applicant is “the first in the family to attend college,…comes from a disadvantaged background, and whether languages other than English are spoken in the home.”</p>

[texaspg]

<p>All of the schools admit a lot more students than the final percentages. So it can’t be assumed that the race percentages based on attending students is reflective of admitted percentages. </p>

<p>At less than 50% yield, the race numbers can be altered disproportionately.</p>

<p>Applied men 16,919
Applied women 18,512
Admitted men 7,467
Admitted women 9,096
Enrolled men 3,619
Enrolled women 4,417</p>

<p><a href=“https://sp.austin.utexas.edu/sites/ut/rpt/Documents/IMA_PUB_CDS_2012_AY.pdf[/url]”>https://sp.austin.utexas.edu/sites/ut/rpt/Documents/IMA_PUB_CDS_2012_AY.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[cromette]

<p>While that wouldn’t be unusual, actually I just messed it up. The percentages are flipped. I fixed it. TAMU had 69% White students, while UT had 46%.</p>

<p>Moving data from horizontal to vertical is challenging for a nitwit.</p>

<p>And there ARE irregularities in the statistics because of double reporting, those who refuse to report, etc.</p>

[xiggi]

<p>

Beliasky: If my children have a lower chance of admission to a state university because they check one racial box instead of another, I consider that they are being treated like second class citizens in the admissions process. </p>

<p>TPG: the problem with Abigail Fisher is that her stats are so bad, she will be the cause of the failure of the case.</p>

<p>The current Texas standard favors Asians since they just need to do well in school and nothing else.

</p>

<p>For a small demographic perspective:</p>

<p>Freshmen Enrollment 2012
<a href=“https://sp.austin.utexas.edu/sites/ut/rpt/Documents/IMA_PUB_CDS_2012_AY.pdf[/url]”>https://sp.austin.utexas.edu/sites/ut/rpt/Documents/IMA_PUB_CDS_2012_AY.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
Column 1
versus
Population Distribution in Texas
[Texas</a> QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau](<a href=“http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48000.html]Texas”>http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48000.html)
Column 2</p>

<p>Races - %UT - % Population in Texas
White - 46% - 45%
Blacks - 4% - 12%
Asian - 18% - 4%
Hispanics - 24% - 38%</p>

<p>Differences
White - Plus 1%
Blacks - Minus 8%<br>
Asian - Plus 14%
Hispanics - Minus 14%</p>

<p>Funny how that works out!</p>

<p>PS Xposted with similar data! :)</p>

[xiggi]

<p>For the percentages of admissions by race:</p>

<p><a href=“Home | Legal Affairs”>Home | Legal Affairs;

<p><a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/SB_175_Report_for_2012.pdf[/url]”>http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/research/SB_175_Report_for_2012.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>See Page 26 for an analysis of the non-top 10 percent.</p>

[cromette]

<p>Xiggi, exactly! UT admits a LOT of Asians, statistically. And Whites are well represented too, really. I think they have admitted to trying to “engineer” a diverse student body, but it looks like they have maintained a fair representation of White students to me.</p>

[lookingforward]

<p>So, it begs asking: if there are percentages that do not mirror the state population, where do you focus your attention? On one or two kids whose noses might get out of joint? At “our” kids who wish to perpetuate whatever serves them? Or say, look, big boys and girls, we’ve got an issue to tackle?</p>

[TatinG]

<p>A state’s total demographics and the demographic that graduated high school and are in the age range to attend college are two different things.</p>

<p>Texas’s 10% rule in essence addresses that some high schools are inferior to others, that some do not have AP classes, that some are in areas in which the parents are primarily uneducated, poor, etc. </p>

<p>What the court is addressing is that UT was giving preference to certain minorities who didn’t have the disadvantages of attending a bad high school or being poor. It makes no sense for the child of a black professional attending the same high school in the same neighborhood as the child of a white professional to be given extra points for being black.</p>

[Beliavsky]

<p>Suppose there was a $1000 income tax surcharge on whites and Asians. Their average after-tax income would still be higher than that of blacks and Hispanics. The surcharge would still be wrong because it’s discriminatory, whether the amount is $1 or $1000, and regardless of what the current after-tax distribution of income by race looks like.</p>

<p>Even if an admissions process that discriminates against some groups leaves them over-represented, I still think the discrimination is wrong.</p>

[xiggi]

<p>TatinG, perhaps you could look at the statistics regarding the “rich Blacks” who were admitted outside the top 10%. And then compare those numbers to the other racial groups.</p>

[lookingforward]

<p>I think, absent the numbers of 17-18 year olds by identity group (which I suspect one of us can easily find,) don’t the above posts show there is not sufficient representation by Black and Hispanic kids? And, can you point me to where it says her argument is against high SES minority kids? I have missed that. I do agree Garre sashayed into that, in describing the holistic efforts.</p>