AUSTIN
A legal group that fights racial preferences in schools filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the University of Texas at Austin, claiming its undergraduate admissions policies violate the Constitution and federal law.
The lawsuit was filed by the Washington, D.C.-based Project on Fair Representation. The plaintiff, Abigail Fisher, is from Richmond, a Houston suburb. She is a White student who finished in the top 12 percent of her high school class but was rejected for admission to UT-Austin.
The flagship campus for the University of Texas system reserved a record 81 percent of its fall admission offers this year to students guaranteed a spot on campus under the state’s top 10 percent law.
The automatic admissions law was adopted a decade ago after a federal appeals court decision made affirmative action illegal in Texas college admissions. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed universities to use race as one of many decision-making factors.
The university’s minority enrollment is higher now than any time in the decade since lawmakers enacted the top 10 percent law. UT-Austin had just over 37,000 undergraduate students in fall 2007. Of those, 6,700 were Hispanic and 1,700 Black.
The lawsuit argues that the Supreme Court’s ruling required universities to make a good-faith effort to improve diversity using race-neutral policies before resorting to racial preferences.
