NAACP Legal Defense Fund : Defend, Educate, Empower

Fisher v. Texas is the first federal litigation challenging the use of race in university admissions since the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision upholding the University of Michigan Law School’s race-conscious admissions process in Grutter v. Bollinger.

The suit against the University of Texas was filed in 2008 by two white students who were denied entry into UT Austin.  Most students are admitted to UT Austin under the Top Ten Percent Plan, which guarantees admission to all Texas students in the top ten percent of their high school class. The remaining students are admitted under a holistic admissions process that considers race as one of many factors in a student’s application file.

On April 13, 2009, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) filed a friend of court brief in the district court in Texas.  LDF’s friend of the court brief was filed on behalf of the Black Student Alliance at UT Austin. The brief emphasizes the limited enrollment of, and isolation experienced by, African-American and other students of color in the eight-year period before UT Austin reinstituted race as a factor in admissions for the 2005 entering class.  As a consequence, LDF argued, all students were deprived of the educational benefits of diversity.

In August, the federal district court agreed with LDF’s position and upheld UT Austin’s plan to achieve diversity as constitutional.  The plaintiffs appealed this decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In March of 2010, LDF filed a second friend of court brief in the case, reiterating many of our previous arguments and affirming the district court’s decision as correct.