Conservative Supreme Court justices argued in a dissent Thursday that the court should not have approved the University of Texas’ use of race as a factor in its admissions process, since the school has yet to demonstrate that doing so serves any “compelling interests,” or that it is as narrowly tailored as possible.
The court ruled 4-3 that the schools’ admissions process is not a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The case involves a white student who was denied admission to the school, who later challenged the use of race as a factor by the school.
In 2013, the court sent the case back down to a lower court, with specific instructions that the University of Texas identify its specific interests in using race as a factor in admissions, and also show proof that these interests were being met by the policy.
But the dissent authored by Justice Samuel Alito, and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas, says the school never did that.
“The University has still not identified with any degree of specificity the interests that its use of race and ethnicity is supposed to serve,” Alito wrote.
“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,” he added.
Alito said the school’s “plea for deference” is something the Supreme Court rejected in its prior decision in the case, although today, the court “inexplicably grants that request.”
More specifically, Alito wrote that the school hasn’t shown that its race-based admissions program is helping to boost minority enrollment in classes that are underrepresented by minorities.
He also said UT hasn’t explained what “critical mass” of minorities the school is trying to achieve. “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,” he wrote.
“This is a plea for deference — indeed, for blind deference — the very thing that the court rejected in Fisher I,” Alito wrote.
“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,” he added. “UT has failed to make that showing. By all rights, judgment should be entered in favor of petitioner.”
Justice Thomas wrote a short dissent in which he said he agrees with the court’s 2013 ruling, which said “a State’s use of race in higher education admissions is categorically prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause,” and that it’s a “faddish” theory to say that racial discrimination may produce “educational benefits.”
