Fisher v University of Texas-Austin. How in the world did this case ever make it to the Supreme Court??? By statutory law, and not UT policy, any graduate of a Texas high school who is ranked in the top 10% of his or her high school class is guaranteed admission to UT. This 10% policy was meant to increase minority admissions. How does it increase minority admissions? Because Texas public high schools are still highly segregated in certain regions of Texas. In the Rio Grade Valley, the schools are overwhelmingly Hispanic. In the urban area, such as Houston and Dallas, are overwhelmingly black. As for the remaining seats, there is a full-file review. Those who are not in the top 10% include those who were ranked below 10% as well as those who went to schools where there were no ranks (e.g., many of the best private schools in Texas do not rank HS students). The full-file review applicants get scored on an Academic Index (AI) and a Personal Achievement Index (PAI). AI is determined by a multiple regression equation including lass rank, completion of the UT required curriculum and the ACT or SAT score. PAI score is based on two essays and a Personal Achievement Score (PAS). Essays are reviewed by readers, who score the essays from 1-6. There is no race involved in the grading of the essays. The PAS is based on 6 factors of equal strength: (1) leadership potential, (2) extracurricular activities, (3) honors and awards, (4) work experience, (5) community service, and (6) special circumstances. The “special circumstances” factor is based on seven attributes: (1) Socio-economic status of family; (2) Single parent home; (3) Language spoken at home; (4) Family responsibilities; (5) Socio-economic status of HS; (6) Average ACT/SAT of school attended in relation to student’s own ACT/SAT; and (7) Race. However the PAS factors are not given an automatic score. The applicant is looked at as a whole. Therefore race is 1/7th of 1/6th of the factors which is one half the factors of PAI. They are plotted on a matrix for each school/major for UT. The AI on x-axis (horizontal) and the PAI on the y-axis (vertical). They then become a part of a cell. Everyone in that cell is either accepted or rejected (denied admission). This means that within the cell, it is impossible to consider race. So Abigail Fisher who lives in Texas applies in 2008. She applies for Business Administration or Liberal Arts. Not in the top 10% but pretty good SAT and GPA scores. Out of 6 she gets a 3.1 in AI. Her PAI score is less than 6 (the actual score was contained in a sealed brief). 2008, was not a good year to apply to UT because it was very tough for the non-10% to get into UT. So the problem for Fisher is that the PAI scoring where race is a tiny part could not help her no matter what. Even with a perfect 6 PAI, she would have still fallen short. So she applied to the summer program (many schools have this--provisional admission to some applicants who were denied admission to the fall class, subject to completing certain academic requirements over the summer). While one black and 4 Hispanics with the same or lower AI/PAI scores got in, so did 42 whites. Among the blacks and Hispanics with her AI/PAI score or higher, 168 were rejected. She was offered admission to the Coordinated Admissions Program, that allows Texas residents to gain admission to UT for their second year if they complete 30 credits at a participating (and lesser) UT System campus and maintain a 3.2 GPA. Fisher turned that down and went to LSU and last year graduated from LSU. So if in any action, the plaintiff has the initial burden of showing injury–what was her injury? How in the world did this case ever make it to the Supreme Court???
Posted on: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 01:47:51 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015