Diversity Issues: Supreme Court Sends Affirmative Action Case Back to Lower Courts
June 24, 2013
This morning, the Supreme Court released its decision on the Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (11-345) case in regards to whether the university’s race-conscious admissions policies violated the equal protection rights of some white applicants. The 7-1 majority decision (read it HERE) sent back the case to the lower courts for further review. Although the court allowed the use of race, the decision will make it more difficult for institutions to use it to achieve diversity by requiring “strict scrutiny” as the standard. For the full story, go HERE. For a statement on today’s decision from attorney’s representing plaintiffs in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals case that recently held Michigan’s ban on affirmative action unconstitutional, go HERE.
More information will follow later today. For more information on the Bunche Center’s past research on diversity issues, click HERE.
Specifically, the Court declined to hear a case in which the federal appellate court below upheld Denver’s race-conscious affirmative action program for public contracting because the city “had demonstrated strong evidence from which an inference of past or present discrimination could be drawn.” (emphasis added.) This decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit constitutes yet another substantial departure from the longstanding exacting nature of strict scrutiny review because the court failed to require Denver to actually prove the existence of discrimination, rather it was enough that the city had raised an “inference of past or present discrimination” to justify its continued reliance on racial preferences in government contracting.