Fisher v. University of Texas
570 U.S. _
Case Year: 2013
Case Ruling: 7-1, Vacated and Remanded
Opinion Justice: Kennedy
FACTS
The University of Texas at Austin has used several different methods for evaluating applications for undergraduate admission. Before 1996, the University considered high school grades and standardized test scores and, to promote diversity, the race of the applicant. When, in 1996, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the use of race violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, the University substituted a “Personal Achievement Index” (PAI) that took into account factors such as leadership, work experience, awards, extra-curricular activities, community service, and other special considerations. The state legislature further modified the process by enacting a law that gave automatic admission to all students in the top ten percent of their class in accredited Texas high schools. Because high schools in Texas are often racially segregated, the ten percent rule brought substantial racial diversity to the University, nearly equaling the effect of the explicit consideration of race used before 1996. In 2004, after the Supreme Court decided Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), the University again changed its admissions policies by explicitly adding race to the list of “plus” factors to be considered as part of an applicant’s PAI score.
In 2008, 29,501 individuals applied for admission to the University. Of the 29,501, 12,843 were accepted and 6,717 enrolled. Among the rejected applicants was Abigail Noel Fisher, who is white. Fisher sued the University arguing that the consideration of race in the admissions process violated the Equal Protection Clause. The federal district court gave a victory to the University and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that Grutter required the court to give substantial deference to the University both with respect to identifying a compelling interest and determining a narrowly tailored plan to achieve that interest.
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed the Fifth Circuit’s decision (“Fisher I”). As in Grutter, the Court applied strict scrutiny and, again as in Grutter, found that diversity was a sufficiently compelling interest. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy then turned to whether the plan the university chose to attain diversity is necessary to that goal. “On this point,” he wrote, “the University receives no deference.” Rather, the university must bear “the ultimate burden of demonstrating, before turning to racial classifications, that available, workable race-neutral alternatives do not suffice.”
The Court did not invalidate the university’s program. But it did send the case back to the lower court so that it could apply Kennedy’s seemingly stricter version of strict scrutiny. After the Fifth Circuit once again upheld the plan, Fisher asked the Supreme Court to reverse the lower court’s decision. Note that Justice Kagan did not participate because she had worked on the case when she served as U.S. Solicitor General.
JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Court is asked once again to consider whether the race-conscious admissions program at the University of Texas is lawful under the Equal Protection Clause…
Fisher I [2013] set forth three controlling principles relevant to assessing the constitutionality of a public university’s affirmative-action program. First, “because racial characteristics so seldom provide a relevant basis for disparate treatment,…[r]ace may not be considered [by a university] unless the admissions process can withstand strict scrutiny.” Strict scrutiny requires the university to demonstrate with clarity that its “‘purpose or interest is both constitutionally permissible and substantial, and that its use of the classification is necessary … to the accomplishment of its purpose.’”
Second, Fisher I confirmed that “the decision to pursue ‘the educational benefits that flow from student body diversity’ … is, in substantial measure, an academic judgment to which some, but not complete, judicial deference is proper.” A university cannot impose a fixed quota or otherwise “define diversity as ‘some specified percentage of a particular group merely because of its race or ethnic origin.’” Once, however, a university gives “a reasoned, principled explanation” for its decision, deference must be given “to the University’s conclusion, based on its experience and expertise, that a diverse student body would serve its educational goals.”
Third, Fisher I clarified that no deference is owed when determining whether the use of race is narrowly tailored to achieve the university’s permissible goals. A university, Fisher I explained, bears the burden of proving a “nonracial approach” would not promote its interest in the educational benefits of diversity “about as well and at tolerable administrative expense.” Though “[n]arrow tailoring does not require exhaustion of every conceivable race-neutral alternative” or “require a university to choose between maintaining a reputation for excellence [and] fulfilling a commitment to provide educational opportunities to members of all racial groups,” it does impose “on the university the ultimate burden of demonstrating” that “race-neutral alternatives” that are both “available” and “workable” “do not suffice.” Fisher I
Fisher I set forth these controlling principles, while taking no position on the constitutionality of the admissions program at issue in this case. The Court held only that the District Court and the Court of Appeals had “confined the strict scrutiny inquiry in too narrow a way by deferring to the University’s good faith in its use of racial classifications.” The Court remanded the case, with instructions to evaluate the record under the correct standard and to determine whether the University had made “a showing that its plan is narrowly tailored to achieve” the educational benefits that flow from diversity. On remand, the Court of Appeals determined that the program conformed with the strict scrutiny mandated by Fisher I.
The University’s program is sui generis. Unlike other approaches to college admissions considered by this Court, it combines holistic review with a percentage plan. This approach gave rise to an unusual consequence in this case: The component of the University’s admissions policy that had the largest impact on petitioner’s chances of admission was not the school’s consideration of race under its holistic-review process but rather the Top Ten Percent Plan. Because petitioner did not graduate in the top 10 percent of her high school class, she was categorically ineligible for more than three-fourths of the slots in the incoming freshman class. It seems quite plausible, then, to think that petitioner would have had a better chance of being admitted to the University if the school used race-conscious holistic review to select its entire incoming class, as was the case in Grutter.
Despite the Top Ten Percent Plan’s outsized effect on petitioner’s chances of admission, she has not challenged it. For that reason, throughout this litigation, the Top Ten Percent Plan has been taken, somewhat artificially, as a given premise…
In seeking to reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals, petitioner makes four arguments. First, she argues that the University has not articulated its compelling interest with sufficient clarity. According to petitioner, the University must set forth more precisely the level of minority enrollment that would constitute a “critical mass.” Without a clearer sense of what the University’s ultimate goal is, petitioner argues, a reviewing court cannot assess whether the University’s admissions program is narrowly tailored to that goal.
As this Court’s cases have made clear, however, the compelling interest that justifies consideration of race in college admissions is not an interest in enrolling a certain number of minority students. Rather, a university may institute a race-conscious admissions program as a means of obtaining “the educational benefits that flow from student body diversity.”
As this Court has said, enrolling a diverse student body “promotes cross-racial understanding, helps to break down racial stereotypes, and enables students to better understand persons of different races.” Equally important, “student body diversity promotes learning outcomes, and better prepares students for an increasingly diverse workforce and society.”
Increasing minority enrollment may be instrumental to these educational benefits, but it is not, as petitioner seems to suggest, a goal that can or should be reduced to pure numbers. Indeed, since the University is prohibited from seeking a particular number or quota of minority students, it cannot be faulted for failing to specify the particular level of minority enrollment at which it believes the educational benefits of diversity will be obtained.
On the other hand, asserting an interest in the educational benefits of diversity writ large is insufficient. A university’s goals cannot be elusory or amorphous they must be sufficiently measurable to permit judicial scrutiny of the policies adopted to reach them.
The record reveals that in first setting forth its current admissions policy, the University articulated concrete and precise goals. On the first page of its 2004 “Proposal to Consider Race and Ethnicity in Admissions,” the University identifies the educational values it seeks to realize through its admissions process: the destruction of stereotypes, the “‘promot[ion of] cross-racial understanding,’” the preparation of a student body “‘for an increasingly diverse workforce and society,’” and the “‘cultivat[ion of] a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry.’” All of these objectives, as a general matter, mirror the “compelling interest” this Court has approved in its prior cases.
The University has provided in addition a “reasoned, principled explanation” for its decision to pursue these goals. The University’s 39-page proposal was written following a year-long study, which concluded that “[t]he use of race-neutral policies and programs ha[d] not been successful” in “provid[ing] an educational setting that fosters cross-racial understanding, provid[ing] enlightened discussion and learning, [or] prepar[ing] students to function in an increasingly diverse workforce and society.” …
Second, petitioner argues that the University has no need to consider race because it had already “achieved critical mass” by 2003 using the Top Ten Percent Plan and race-neutral holistic review. Petitioner is correct that a university bears a heavy burden in showing that it had not obtained the educational benefits of diversity before it turned to a race-conscious plan. The record reveals, however, that, at the time of petitioner’s application, the University could not be faulted on this score. Before changing its policy the University conducted “months of study and deliberation, including retreats, interviews, [and] review of data,” and concluded that “[t]he use of race-neutral policies and programs ha[d] not been successful in achieving” sufficient racial diversity at the University…
The record itself contains significant evidence, both statistical and anecdotal, in support of the University’s position…. [T]he demographic data the University has submitted show consistent stagnation in terms of the percentage of minority students enrolling at the University from 1996 to 2002. In 1996, for example, 266 African-American freshmen enrolled, a total that constituted 4.1 percent of the incoming class. In 2003, the year Grutter was decided, 267 African-American students enrolled—again, 4.1 percent of the incoming class. …
In addition to this broad demographic data, the University put forward evidence that minority students admitted under the Hopwood regime experienced feelings of loneliness and isolation.
This anecdotal evidence is, in turn, bolstered by further, more nuanced quantitative data. In 2002, 52 percent of undergraduate classes with at least five students had no African-American students enrolled in them, and 27 percent had only one African-American student. In other words, only 21 percent of undergraduate classes with five or more students in them had more than one African-American student enrolled. Twelve percent of these classes had no Hispanic students, as compared to 10 percent in 1996. Though a college must continually reassess its need for race-conscious review, here that assessment appears to have been done with care, and a reasonable determination was made that the University had not yet attained its goals.
Third, petitioner argues that considering race was not necessary because such consideration has had only a “‘minimal impact’ in advancing the [University’s] compelling interest.” Again, the record does not support this assertion. In 2003, 11 percent of the Texas residents enrolled through holistic review were Hispanic and 3.5 percent were African-American. In 2007, by contrast, 16.9 percent of the Texas holistic-review freshmen were Hispanic and 6.8 percent were African-American. Those increases—of 54 percent and 94 percent, respectively—show that consideration of race has had a meaningful, if still limited, effect on the diversity of the University’s freshman class.
In any event, it is not a failure of narrow tailoring for the impact of racial consideration to be minor. The fact that race consciousness played a role in only a small portion of admissions decisions should be a hallmark of narrow tailoring, not evidence of unconstitutionality.
Petitioner’s final argument is that “there are numerous other available race-neutral means of achieving” the University’s compelling interest. A review of the record reveals, however, that, at the time of petitioner’s application, none of her proposed alternatives was a workable means for the University to attain the benefits of diversity it sought. For example, petitioner suggests that the University could intensify its outreach efforts to African-American and Hispanic applicants. But the University submitted extensive evidence of the many ways in which it already had intensified its outreach efforts to those students. The University has created three new scholarship programs, opened new regional admissions centers, increased its recruitment budget by half-a-million dollars, and organized over 1,000 recruitment events. Perhaps more significantly, in the wake of Hopwood, the University spent seven years attempting to achieve its compelling interest using race-neutral holistic review. None of these efforts succeeded, and petitioner fails to offer any meaningful way in which the University could have improved upon them at the time of her application…
Petitioner’s final suggestion is to uncap the Top Ten Percent Plan, and admit more—if not all—the University’s students through a percentage plan. As an initial matter, petitioner overlooks the fact that the Top Ten Percent Plan, though facially neutral, cannot be understood apart from its basic purpose, which is to boost minority enrollment….
Even if, as a matter of raw numbers, minority enrollment would increase under such a regime, petitioner would be hard-pressed to find convincing support for the proposition that college admissions would be improved if they were a function of class rank alone. That approach would sacrifice all other aspects of diversity in pursuit of enrolling a higher number of minority students. A system that selected every student through class rank alone would exclude the star athlete or musician whose grades suffered because [32] of daily practices and training. It would exclude a talented young biologist who struggled to maintain above-average grades in humanities classes. And it would exclude a student whose freshman-year grades were poor because of a family crisis but who got herself back on track in her last three years of school, only to find herself just outside of the top decile of her class.
In short, none of petitioner’s suggested alternatives—nor other proposals considered or discussed in the course of this litigation—have been shown to be “available” and “workable” means through which the University could have met its educational goals, as it understood and defined them in 2008. The University has thus met its burden of showing that the admissions policy it used at the time it rejected petitioner’s application was narrowly tailored….
A university is in large part defined by those intangible “qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness.” Considerable deference is owed to a university in defining those intangible characteristics, like student body diversity, that are central to its identity and educational mission. But still, it remains an enduring challenge to our Nation’s education system to reconcile the pursuit of diversity with the constitutional promise of equal treatment and dignity.
In striking this sensitive balance, public universities, like the States themselves The University of Texas at Austin has a special opportunity to learn and to teach. The University now has at its disposal valuable data about the manner in which different approaches to admissions may foster diversity or instead dilute it. The University must continue to use this data to scrutinize the fairness of its admissions program; to assess whether changing demographics have undermined the need for a race-conscious policy; and to identify the effects, both positive and negative, of the affirmative-action measures it deems necessary.
The Court’s affirmance of the University’s admissions policy today does not necessarily mean the University may rely on that same policy without refinement. It is the University’s ongoing obligation to engage in constant deliberation and continued reflection regarding its admissions policies.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE THOMAS, dissenting.
I join JUSTICE ALITO’s dissent….
I write separately to reaffirm that “a State’s use of race in higher education admissions decisions is categorically prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause.” “The Constitution abhors classifications based on race because every time the government places citizens on racial registers and makes race relevant to the provision of burdens or benefits, it demeans us all.” That constitutional imperative does not change in the face of a “faddish theor[y]” that racial discrimination may produce “educational benefits.” The Court was wrong to hold otherwise in Grutter v. Bollinger. I would overrule Grutter and reverse the Fifth Circuit’s judgment.
JUSTICE ALITO, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting.
Something strange has happened since our prior decision in this case (Fisher I). In that decision, we held that strict scrutiny requires the University of Texas at Austin (UT or University) to show that its use of race and ethnicity in making admissions decisions serves compelling interests and that its plan is narrowly tailored to achieve those ends. Rejecting the argument that we should defer to UT’s judgment on those matters, we made it clear that UT was obligated (1) to identify the interests justifying its plan with enough specificity to permit a reviewing court to determine whether the requirements of strict scrutiny were met, and (2) to show that those requirements were in fact satisfied. On remand, UT failed to do what our prior decision demanded. The University has still not identified with any degree of specificity the interests that its use of race and ethnicity is supposed to serve. Its primary argument is that merely invoking “the educational benefits of diversity” is sufficient and that it need not identify any metric that would allow a court to determine whether its plan is needed to serve, or is actually serving, those interests. This is nothing less than the plea for deference that we emphatically rejected in our prior decision. Today, however, the Court inexplicably grants that request.
To the extent that UT has ever moved beyond a plea for deference and identified the relevant interests in more specific terms, its efforts have been shifting, unpersuasive, and, at times, less than candid. When it adopted its race-based plan, UT said that the plan was needed to promote classroom diversity. It pointed to a study showing that African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American students were underrepresented in many classes. But UT has never shown that its race-conscious plan actually ameliorates this situation. The University presents no evidence that its admissions officers, in administering the “holistic” component of its plan, make any effort to determine whether an African-American, Hispanic, or Asian-American student is likely to enroll in classes in which minority students are underrepresented. And although UT’s records should permit it to determine without much difficulty whether holistic admittees are any more likely than students admitted through the Top Ten Percent Law to enroll in the classes lacking racial or ethnic diversity, UT either has not crunched those numbers or has not revealed what they show. Nor has UT explained why the underrepresentation of Asian-American students in many classes justifies its plan, which discriminates against those students.
At times, UT has claimed that its plan is needed to achieve a “critical mass” of African-American and Hispanic students, but it has never explained what this term means. According to UT, a critical mass is neither some absolute number of African-American or Hispanic students nor the percentage of African-Americans or Hispanics in the general population of the State. The term remains undefined, but UT tells us that it will let the courts know when the desired end has been achieved. This is a plea for deference—indeed, for blind deference—the very thing that the Court rejected in Fisher I.
UT has also claimed at times that the race-based component of its plan is needed because the Top Ten Percent Plan admits the wrong kind of African-American and Hispanic students, namely, students from poor families who attend schools in which the student body is predominantly African-American or Hispanic. As UT put it in its brief in Fisher I, the race-based component of its admissions plan is needed to admit “[t]he African-American or Hispanic child of successful professionals in Dallas.”
After making this argument in its first trip to this Court, UT apparently had second thoughts, and in the latest round of briefing UT has attempted to disavow ever having made the argument. But it did, and the argument turns affirmative action on its head. Affirmative-action programs were created to help disadvantaged students.
Although UT now disowns the argument that the Top Ten Percent Plan results in the admission of the wrong kind of African-American and Hispanic students, the Fifth Circuit majority bought a version of that claim. As the panel majority put it, the Top Ten African-American and Hispanic admittees cannot match the holistic African-American and Hispanic admittees when it comes to “records of personal achievement,” a “variety of perspectives” and “life experiences,” and “unique skills.” All in all, according to the panel majority, the Top Ten Percent students cannot “enrich the diversity of the student body” in the same way as the holistic admittees. …
The Fifth Circuit reached this conclusion with little direct evidence regarding the characteristics of the Top Ten Percent and holistic admittees. Instead, the assumption behind the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning is that most of the African-American and Hispanic students admitted under the race-neutral component of UT’s plan were able to rank in the top decile of their high school classes only because they did not have to compete against white and Asian-American students. This insulting stereotype is not supported by the record. African-American and Hispanic students admitted under the Top Ten Percent Plan receive higher college grades than the African-American and Hispanic students admitted under the race-conscious program.
It should not have been necessary for us to grant review a second time in this case, and I have no greater desire than the majority to see the case drag on. But that need not happen. When UT decided to adopt its race-conscious plan, it had every reason to know that its plan would have to satisfy strict scrutiny and that this meant that it would be its burden to show that the plan was narrowly tailored to serve compelling interests. UT has failed to make that showing. By all rights, judgment should be entered in favor of petitioner.
But if the majority is determined to give UT yet another chance, we should reverse and send this case back to the District Court. What the majority has now done—awarding a victory to UT in an opinion that fails to address the important issues in the case—is simply wrong….
It is important to understand what is and what is not at stake in this case. What is not at stake is whether UT or any other university may adopt an admissions plan that results in a student body with a broad representation of students from all racial and ethnic groups. UT previously had a race-neutral plan that it claimed had “effectively compensated for the loss of affirmative action,” and UT could have taken other steps that would have increased the diversity of its admitted students without taking race or ethnic background into account.
What is at stake is whether university administrators may justify systematic racial discrimination simply by asserting that such discrimination is necessary to achieve “the educational benefits of diversity,” without explaining—much less proving—why the discrimination is needed or how the discriminatory plan is well crafted to serve its objectives. Even though UT has never provided any coherent explanation for its asserted need to discriminate on the basis of race, and even though UT’s position relies on a series of unsupported and noxious racial assumptions, the majority concludes that UT has met its heavy burden. This conclusion is remarkable—and remarkably wrong.
Because UT has failed to satisfy strict scrutiny, I respectfully dissent.