Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Affirmative Action Program at University of Texas

Jun 30 2016
By B. Rose Kelly
Source Woodrow Wilson School

Last week, the Supreme Court voted to uphold the use of race in the admissions process at the University of Texas (UT).

The 4-3 ruling came as a surprise for some, especially university officials and civil rights advocates who believe affirmative action is an important piece in promoting diversity in higher education.

The majority opinion was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. Elena Kagan was recused. She served as the solicitor general when the Fisher v. University of Texas case was before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

We discussed the ruling and its implications with Marta Tienda, Maurice P. During Professor in Demographic Studies and a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, for WWS Reacts.

Q. The 4-3 decision upholds affirmative-action admissions at the University of Texas. Is this the ruling you expected?

Tienda: No, this is not what I expected, but hope is the last thing to lose. I was pleasantly surprised, especially given my decade-long study of UT’s admission regimes.

Q. For some, this is a huge win for diversity in higher education. For others — like Abigail Fisher, a white woman who was denied admission to UT — the ruling feels like a step backward. What do you think?

Tienda: The decision is a win for equity and access to higher education — a principle for which there is support. In a society that is highly stratified by income and race, a narrowly tailored consideration of race — “a factor of a factor of a factor,” as Douglas Laycock from the University of Virginia explained in a brief in response to the original decision — is a constitutionally legitimate, compelling state interest. This is especially so for one of the fastest-growing, highly unequal states in the nation. Fisher was a pawn for a politically orchestrated attempt to dismantle all forms of race-sensitive admissions.

Q. UT administrators said it’s important to be able to consider race to ensure diversity that is “crucial to creating a learning environment that can benefit all students.” Othersincluding Justice Clarence Thomassay the use of race in admissions is simply a “faddish theory that racial discrimination may produce ‘educational benefits’.” What are your thoughts on this?

Tienda: It is certainly not faddish, unless fads are now defined to span decades. That said, and as I have written elsewhere, diversity qua representation does not automatically translate to inclusion. The challenge for institutions of higher education is to leverage diversity by fostering climates of inclusion. As the turmoil across various campuses this summer reveals, this is a work in progress.

Q. Do you think this ruling would’ve gone differently if Justice Antonin Scalia, who died four months ago, was still part of the court? In an earlier oral argument of the case, he openly questioned why it was beneficial for more minority students to be admitted to the nation’s top universities.

Tienda: Yes, I believe he would have influenced Justice Kennedy in the way ultimately Justice Sotomayor appears to have done. An article in The Washington Post suggests that Justice Sotomayor’s “incendiary dissent” in response to the first decision triggered doubts for Justice Kennedy. The rest is history.


WWS Reacts is a series of interviews with Woodrow Wilson School experts addressing current events.