Supreme Court Case Analysis

The Supreme Court was presented with the case of Fischer vs. The University of Texas where Abigail Fisher was suing the University for discrimination in their affirmative action based admissions process. The Supreme Court voted 7-1 and ruled to send the case back to the lower courts for further review and put off making any final decisions to change the U.S. policy on affirmative action, a “longstanding but fragile societal compromise, one that forbids quotas but allows using race as one factor among many in the admissions process” (Laptik). Both articles discussed in length the constitutionality of the race-based admissions process as well as explaining the Supreme Court’s position on the matter. The justices made statements that explained that the admissions programs must be subject to strict scrutiny where the it can be determined that classification based on gender, race and ethnicity occurs for the sole purpose of creating a diverse student population. The programs that use affirmative action in public universities are being scrutinized to ensure that their methods are a means to an end and serve to create diversity only. This issue will come before the Supreme Court again in the future and there will most likely be a more permanent ruling on the matter.
This passage is very clear in its message. It tells us that it is wrong to give unfair advantage to one person or group. This message concerns me however because I believe that it is too black and white. I think that the problem of affirmative action is incredibly complicated and it cannot be understood or judged race-neutral to avoid discrimination and a “false