Fisher v. University of Texas
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
631 F.3d 213 (2011)
Texas's Top Ten Percent Law guaranteed automatic admission to the University of Texas (defendant) for students in the top 10 percent of their Texas high school classes, and did increase minority enrollment, though minority students admitted this way clustered in certain programs, limiting the educational benefits of diversity. Finding this insufficient, UT adopted a supplemental admissions program adding race as one contextual factor -- affecting only a small part of an applicant's overall admissions score -- for the portion of the class not admitted under the Top Ten Percent Law.
Whether, under the Equal Protection Clause, race may be considered in a higher-education institution's admissions process if the institution has undertaken serious, good-faith consideration before resorting to race-conscious measures.