Well, the U.S. Supreme Court finally made a decision in the saga of affirmative action at the University of Texas in Austin.
Back in 1997, UT came up with a plan to gain a diverse student body while avoiding the controversy of affirmative action. The school started automatically accepting the top 10 percent of graduates from each of the state's high schools. That meant that if you were ranked in the top 10 percent of your school, you got in. It didn't matter if the school was in a rich or poor area, highly or lowly ranked, mostly white or mostly minority. (The 10 percent rule has since been change to admit only the top 8 percent.)
In 2003, though, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed colleges and universities to use limited consideration of race to achieve campus diversity. UT began factoring race into admissions once again.
In 2008, the school turned down an application from Abigail Fisher. Fisher, who is white, was not in the top 10 percent of her high school class, but her grades and test scores were considerably higher than many other students who were admitted to UT.
She sued, charging racial discrimination. She argued diversity had been achieved through the top 10 program and so was not needed for the remainder of admissions.
She lost in federal court and on an appeal to the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
The case went to the nation's highest court two years ago. The justices had been widely expected to divide along conservative-liberal lines-with Justice Anthony Kennedy, never a fan of affirmative action, siding with the right wing of the court-and dealing a death blow to the practice.
Instead, the court voted 7-1 (Justice Elena Kagan recused herself from the case, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented) to send the cases back to the 5th Circuit for reconsideration.
But the case made its way back to the nation's highest court. And this time, there was a ruling in favor of UT and affirmative action.
Writing for the 4-3 majority, with Kagan again recusing, Justice Anthony Kennedy said race was such a small factor in UT's admission process that it fell within the court's 2003 ruling.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing in dissent, disagreed, saying UT had not adequately explained "with any degree of specificity the interests that its use of race and ethnicity is supposed to serve."
Kennedy voting to uphold UT's admission policies was a surprise to many. He has never before sided with a race-based affirmative action plan.
In our view, Texas was right to base admission on merit alone. Taking in factors such as race or ethnicity-and by extension gender , sexual orientation or religion-means some students will be discriminated against to benefit others based on some arbitrary measure of diversity.
A student's ability and accomplishment are what should should be rewarded-no matter the race, gender or background.