The Constitutionality Of Redressing Historic Injustice Essay

Lauren Pardue GOVT 2306 M2 27 December 2016 Affirmative Action: The Constitutionality of Redressing Historic Injustice One of the most problematic and controversial issues in The United States of America is affirmative action. Affirmative action is a policy of affording minorities certain privileges in order to combat the historical prejudice against them. In an effort to redress the historical injustices faced by African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities, universities and employers across the nation have taken race into account when admitting students or hiring employees. Abigail Fisher, of Texas, applied for admission into the University of Texas at Austin (UT) and was denied; she sued the public university on the grounds of racial discrimination or reverse racism in the supreme court case Fisher v University of Texas. Abigail Fisher is a white female from Sugarland, Texas. Both her father and her older sister are UT alumni. She was not in the top ten percent of her class, so she was not granted automatic admissions to UT per Texas House Bill 588 (HB 588), which grants automatic admission to public high school students who graduated in the top ten percent of their class. When Texas Senate Bill 175 was passed in 2009, UT could cap the number of students automatically admitted at seventy-five percent of the incoming class (or the top seven percent of high school graduates). Only fifteen percent of the incoming class consists of Texas residents not in the top seven