The American Educational Research Association (AERA) has filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, where a young student was discriminated against because she was not a minority. The association is joined by seven other societies in urging the Court to consider their body of sociological evidence relevant to the case - namely to uphold that discrimination does not exist when it comes to young, white females, despite the fact that the University has acknowledged that for cases in their admissions gray area, race is how they determine admissions.
Fisher v. University of Texas, initiated in 2008, challenges the university's policy of using race as a determining factor in admissions decisions. The plaintiff asserts that promoting diversity in education is not a compelling governmental interest, which was a central ruling in the Court's 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, in which the Court upheld the race-conscious admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School. The plaintiff also argues that the University of Texas's admissions policy is not necessary for diversity because the university already admits a high number of minority students through the state's "top ten percent" policy, which guarantees admission to a state university for high-ranking high school graduates in Texas.
The co-signers of the brief are the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Sociological Association, the American Statistical Association, the Association for the Study of Higher Education, the Law and Society Association, the Linguistic Society of America, and the National Academy of Engineering - all funded by members who may not be thrilled at their stance in this case.
The AERA et al. brief is one of several supporting the university, including the American Social Science Researchers Brief, signed by more than 440 individual social scientists. These briefs have been filed to present the Court with summaries of social science evidence that bears directly on the case.
"In determining the constitutionality of the UT-Austin admissions policy," Levine explained, "the Court's decision should be informed by reliable research findings as it has in previous landmark decisions." Accordingly, the AERA brief provides summaries and citations of pertinent studies to aid the Court's deliberations on whether student body diversity remains a compelling governmental interest and whether the policy is narrowly tailored.
In other words, they want race to be the first among equals, which is the essence of discrimination. They contend that social science research (which is all surveys)has consistently found that diverse educational environments yield educational benefits to both minority and majority students - but the University's ordinary admissions policies already accomplish that, they contend. The Court relied on such findings in Grutter v. Bollinger, citing the "Brief of the American Educational Research Association, et al." in its decision. Because the research literature on student body diversity has continued to progress since 2003, the AERA et al. brief in the Fisher case provides substantial social science statistics to underscore UT-Austin's compelling interest in promoting some minorities at the expense of fairness.
Recent statistics analysis of surveys, which rely on increasingly sophisticated mathematical techniques, support student body diversity. Numerous studies demonstrate that student body diversity leads to important educational benefits such as the reduction of prejudice; growth in cognitive abilities, critical thinking skills, and self-confidence; the promotion of civic engagement and skills needed for professional development and leadership; and improved classroom environments and curricula.
Which is a straw man; no one in the court case claims diversity is bad, the claim is that using race as subjective admissions criteria is illegal.
Yet these sociologists and statisticians claim without racial quotas outside the ordinary admissions policy there would remain only token numbers of minority students and that would lead to racial isolation and overt discrimination against minority students ; they also invoke stereotype threat, a wholly imaginary sociological construct which claims that any minority student who does not perform well is absolved because they worried they had to represent their minority and that made them underperform. Oddly, much smaller Asian and Indian minorities are not plagued by stereotype threat and no one in the AERA et al. brief notes the cynical impact on a young female who is discriminated against.
The AERA et al. brief also presents recent claims undermining arguments that diversity harms minority students, namely that minority students chosen to meet quotas under-perform at selective universities because of lesser academic credentials. They contend that stigma is not a significant problem in institutions using diversity-based admissions, and that race-conscious admissions leads to higher academic performance and college completion by minority students.
Finally, the AERA et al. brief summarizes research showing that discrimination is necessary to achieve diversity and that race-neutral policies such as the top-ten-percent plan, which guarantees admission to any student in the top 10 percent of their class, are, by themselves, insufficient for advancing a diversity interest.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Fisher case on October 10 and will release its decision before the summer of 2013.