Note by Sara Norval
Abigail Fisher applied for undergraduate admission to the University of Texas at Austin in the fall of 2008 and was denied. The University admitted 81% of the freshman class that year through the Top Ten Percent Plan, which grants automatic admission to all Texas students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class. To select the remaining 19% of the class, the University used a holistic review process, considering grades, test scores, extracurricular activities, essays, honors, awards, community service, work experience, family circumstances, socioeconomic status, and race. Fisher was not in the top 10% of her class, and so she joined 17,130 other applicants competing for one of the remaining 1,216 seats in the class. Fisher, who is white, challenged the University’s race-conscious holistic review program as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Citation
89 Tul. L. Rev. 947 (2015)