The case being considered by the Court was filed by a young White woman named Abigail Fisher of Texas. Fisher failed to rank in the top 10 percent of her graduating high school class, which would have automatically earned her admission into the state’s public university system. As a result, she was placed in a separate pool of applicants who could be admitted through a complicated admissions process that allows race to be considered as a factor in admissions. When Fisher failed to be admitted to the University of Texas at Austin, the state’s flagship university, she concluded that she was rejected based on her race and sued the university in 2008.
