Making Disappointment a Federal Case

In 1978, in the case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the justices struck down a racial set-aside program at UC Davis Medical School but allowed race to be taken into account as one of several factors. And in 2003, in Grutter v. Bollinger, the court upheld the admissions policy at the University of Michigan Law School, saying the school had a compelling interest to obtain a critical mass of minority students and that a race-based approach was fine if other factors were considered.

Now, in Fisher v. University of Texas, where the justices recently heard oral arguments, the court will have to decide whether the flagship institution of the public university system in the Lone Star State went too far in trying to admit more Latino and African-American students to keep pace with the states changing demographics.

Texas is 12 percent African-American and 38 percent Latino. The student body at the University of Texas at Austin -- with its 52,000 students -- is just 4.5 percent African-American and 18 percent Latino.

To improve those numbers, UT has a policy where 75 percent of the slots go to students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school class, but the remaining 25 percent go to students admitted under a process that weighs several factors including race and socioeconomic status.

Big deal. A quarter of the students are admitted according to guidelines that the Supreme Court has already ruled, twice before, are permissible. Where is the infraction?

Fisher attended Louisiana State University and graduated a few months ago. Lets hope that, in college, she took a math course. Because then she might finally be able to understand what happened to her.

Even if UT Austin scrapped its diversity program tomorrow, and filled the whole entering class with students drawn from the top 10 percent of their high schools, she still would not have been admitted. She graduated in the top 12 percent. So she missed the numerical cutoff.

Sure, thats disappointing. But its not discrimination.

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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com.