Higher-Education Groups Back U. of Texas in Affirmative-Action Case

Fourteen national higher-education associations have filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to uphold the use of race-conscious admission policies by the University of Texas at Austin. A lawsuit challenging the university’s decision to go back to considering race after several years without doing so argues that the university had achieved sufficient diversity in its enrollments through other, race-neutral means, such as a state law guaranteeing admission to students in the top 10th of their high-school class. The associations’ brief argues that Supreme Court precedents concerning academic freedom give colleges a First Amendment right to determine for themselves which admissions policies best meet their needs. Among the groups that signed on to the brief are the American Council on Education, the American Association of Community Colleges, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.