"Why Supreme Court Justices Should Celebrate College Diversity, Not Reject It"

"there are also several little-known facts about the case that should give us pause.

Fisher is the handiwork of Edward Blum, a former stockbroker who has also orchestrated legal assaults against voting rights — notably in Shelby County v. Holder, in which the Supreme Court gutted a core section of the Voting Rights Act, and Evenwel v. Abbott, the “one-person, one-vote case” the court hears Tuesday...

Because race is considered in the context of a person’s life experiences, any applicant can benefit. In fact, a white student who attended a majority-black high school may stand out based on the relatively unique perspectives that experience can provide in a starkly segregated state like Texas.

But one aspect of the case has received precious little attention: Ms. Fisher was denied a spot in the class because of her weak academic profile relative to the rest of the pool — not her race, as the university has made clear...

Although one African-American and four Latino applicants with lower combined academic and personal achievement scores than Ms. Fisher’s were provisionally admitted, so were 42 white applicants whose scores were identical to or lower than hers. Similarly, 168 black and Latino students with academic and personal achievement profiles that were as good as, or better than, Ms. Fisher’s were also denied, according to the university.

Even if Ms. Fisher had received the highest possible personal achievement score, she wouldn’t have gotten an acceptance letter. As the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals observed in a careful opinion, if Ms. Fisher had been a minority applicant, she still would have been rejected."

http://nytimes.com/2015/12/08/opinion/justices-dont-reject-college-diversity-celebrate-it.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0&referer=

Related: how the campus protests might be impacting these decisions