Abigail Noel Fisher, the woman who sued the University of Texas at Austin (UT), Texas’ largest and most competitive public university, when she was denied admission in 2008, issued a statement Oct. 10, the day the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing her case.
Fisher and her attorneys have claimed that she was denied admission to the university because she is white, and that other applicants who were not as qualified were admitted simply because they were not white.
Lower courts have sided with the university, which has said that its admissions policies are Constitutional and in keeping with the Supreme Court’s earlier decisions on affirmative action. The university has said race is one of several factors in admissions; courts have said previously that race can be a factor when institutions have a compelling interest in promoting diversity.
Related: Timeline: Abigail Fisher vs. The University of Texas | Supreme Court Urged to Drop Support of Race-Conscious Admissions | University of Texas Court Brief Asserts Proper Use of Race in Admissions
Fisher’s statement was released to a news release wire service by Virginia-based non-profit Project on Fair Representation, which issued a series of question-and-answer sessions with Fisher last month. In one video, Fisher explains why she wanted to go to UT, why she feels she was discriminated against, and what she hopes comes out of her case. In the future, she hopes college applications will “get rid of the box” that students must fill in to note their race, gender, and other personal characteristics.
In the statement released yesterday, Fisher said she is “grateful” the court is hearing her case.
”My parents always taught me that it is wrong to discriminate,” she said in the statement. “I hope the Supreme Court will decide that all future University of Texas applicants will compete without their race or ethnicity used in the school’s admissions process.”
Follow Anna Schumann on Twitter at @ASchumannCMN.
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