By Ketki Chauhan ’16

This legal year, the Supreme Court is reviewing Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin which deals with affirmative action and the use of racial preference in undergraduate admissions at universities across the country. The oral arguments for the case were heard on December 9. The plaintiff, Abigail Fisher, filed the case in 2008 after being denied admission to the university because of its race-conscious admission policy. If her claim is proven true, not only could the university be in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the fourteenth amendment, but analysts believe affirmative action, as a whole, may be removed from college admissions nationwide.

The case has the potential to become another landmark case like Regents of the University of California v. Bakke and Grutter v. Bollinger which have provided precedent for Fisher’s case as both decisions legitimized race-conscious admission policies in order to promote a diverse student body; however, the latter case established that race has a limited role in the admission decisions made by public universities.

The topic of affirmative action raises all sorts of debate because some believe that affirmative action is equivalent to “reverse racism” while others believe that affirmative action is essential because of a centuries-long legacy of racism in the country, which has been stirred up again by tragedies like the Charleston church shooting and the deaths of black men and women at the hands of police officers. Affirmative action has provided effectiveness as a way of having a more diverse student body on college campuses.