AUSTIN, Texas _ A national organization this week filed a suit in federal court on behalf of two white members who claim the University of Texas did not give them a fair opportunity to apply for admission because of their race.
The suit, filed by the nonprofit group Students for Fair Admissions, claims UT's use of racial preferences in admissions violates the 14th Amendment, federal civil rights laws, and Texas law. The suit names over a dozen UT officials as defendants, including James B. Milliken, chancellor of the UT System, and Jay Hartzell, UT's interim president.
Students for Fair Admissions is a national nonprofit membership group which claims more than 20,000 students, parents and others who believe racial classifications and preferences in college admissions are unfair, unnecessary and unconstitutional. The group had filed a similar case in 2018 against UT, which was recently dismissed. The group has also sued administrators at Harvard University. Last fall, a federal judge upheld Harvard's race-conscious admissions policy as constitutional.
According to the latest suit against UT, the group has "at least two members" who applied for and were denied undergraduate admission to UT in 2018 and 2019. The applicants were accepted to and enrolled at another university in Texas and are "ready and able to apply to transfer to UT Austin when it stops discriminating against applicants on the basis of race and ethnicity."
The university currently uses what it calls a holistic admissions process to review students, and race is included in that consideration. The use of race in admissions came under fire in 2008, when Abigail Fisher, a white student who had been denied admission to the university, sued the school in federal court, claiming the university's consideration of race was unconstitutional and resulted in her denial of admission. In June 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the university in the Fisher case, affirming UT's right to continue using race and ethnicity as a factor in the admissions process.
In its 61-page complaint, the group lays out its reasoning for why the current admissions system is unfair and should be stopped by the court. In a statement, Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, said UT has failed to meet its obligation following the Fisher ruling to continue to scrutinize the use of race in its admissions process.
"The Supreme Court did not give the University of Texas a blank check to use race-based preferences in perpetuity, and the university has failed its obligation to reexamine its policies," Blum said.
The group is asking the court to declare UT's admissions policies and procedures a violation of the 14th Amendment, the Civil Rights Act and state law. The group also seeks a permanent injunction barring UT leaders from using race as a factor in future undergraduate admissions.
In a statement, UT spokesman J.B. Bird said the university is reviewing the new lawsuit.
"We agreed with the judge's decision to dismiss SFFA's previous lawsuit, and we remain confident in the lawfulness and constitutionality of UT Austin's holistic admissions policy, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2016," he said.
