In more than 70 friend-of-the court briefs filed in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, supporters of the university asked the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the school’s ability to take appropriate measures to encourage diversity in its classrooms. The Roberts Court may nonetheless strike down the University of Texas’ nuanced admissions program, which considers race as only one of many factors in its review of student applications. Such a decision would be a huge blow to the victory achieved in Brown v. Board of Education, which affirmed our constitutional mandate to combat racial inequality.
Before Brown, the Court had provided legal cover for Jim Crow by maintaining the fiction that public institutions could be “separate but equal.” Brown’s unanimous decision rejected that fiction. It fostered a national recognition that racial segregation cannot be squared with the Constitution’s promise of equal protection under the law.
