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Amicus – Fisher v. Texas

March 14th, 2013

Tommy Larsen
Cole Sitar Amicus
Curiae The University of Texas will be hurt if the Court rules to continue to allow race based admission programs for the following three reasons:
1. Would create negative tension between students. Most students need to work as hard as possible to achieve high grades and test scores for the opportunity to be accepted to a college or university of their choosing. But, what if students who have worked incredibly hard to be admitted mix with those who under-achieved and only got in thanks to racial considerations? These minority students will be looked down upon, and a beneficial and good relationship will be negated.
2. Smarter students will be declined because minority students will be accepted over them. High achieving students such as Abigail Fisher are being pushed away to less prestigious universities. Because the University of Texas, Austin, has an admission system involving race, a less accomplished person could have easily taken her spot.
3. The school itself will decline in reputation. When race is taken into account, academics become less of a factor. Now, lower achieving students are being accepted to this school, and struggling. Being admitted to a school is no sure sign one will be successful afterwards. In addition, if someone does not belong in a university, the odds of success after school are much lower. The more successful students are after graduation, the more successful the school is. The more successful a school is, the more prestigious it is.   With all things considered, using a race blind admission system cannot specifically target any race in anyway. How can it be said that a minority race is being targeted while using race-blind methods? When race is used as a factor, it is clear that some races are being hurt. Continuing to use race as a factor would just maintain a practice which does exactly the opposite of what it is supposed