Court: University of Texas can use race as factor in admissions
The case was sent back down to the federal appellate level by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.
A federal court has ruled that the University of Texas (UT) can use race as a factor in admissions in order to increase diversity.
“To deny UT Austin its limited use of race in its search for holistic diversity would hobble the richness of the educational experience,” Judge Patrick Higginbotham said in the 2-1 opinion for the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
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“Universities may use race as part of a holistic admissions program where it cannot otherwise achieve diversity,” he wrote, according to an article published in The Los Angeles Times.
But the dissenting judge, Emilio Garza, said the university never “defined its diversity goal in any meaningful way.”
The U.S. Supreme Court the lawsuit back to the appeals court last year.
The original case was filed by Abigail Fisher, a white woman who was denied admission in 2008.
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