Supreme Court Sends Affirmative Action Case Back To Lower Court : The Two-Way : NPR: One of the Supreme Court's most anticipated cases of its current term — a challenge to the University of Texas' affirmative action admissions process — has ended with a ruling that does not revisit the fundamental issue of whether such programs discriminate against whites.
In an 7-1 ruling, the high court "vacated and remanded" an earlier decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which had upheld the university's program. (Justice Elena Kagan recused herself because when she was a lawyer at the Justice Department she had been involved in the case.)
The case originated with a young woman named Abigail Fisher. She and another student, who later withdrew as a plaintiff, say they were denied, to the University of Texas at Austin because of their race. Specifically, since Fisher failed to meet the school's academic requirements for automatic admission, her application was evaluated based on a number of other factors, including race.
