Appeals Court Upholds TX Race Based Admissions
NEW ORLEANS - A federal appeals court has upheld the consideration of race in undergraduate admissions to the University of Texas at Austin.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in New Orleans, upheld a program in which the university considers race as one factor for admission after Texas students from the top 10 percent of their high school classes claim places guaranteed by a state law.
The university reinstated race consideration after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a race-conscious admissions program at the University of Michigan Law School. The program is designed to augment the Top Ten Percent law by considering race as a factor in remaining freshman class places at the university. That program was challenged by two white students, Abigail Fisher and Rachel Michalewicz, who were denied admission to the 2008 entering class at the UT main campus in Austin. A federal district court in Austin upheld the race-conscious program in 2009. In its decision the 5th Circuit court panel agreed that the program did not violate the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.
