A New Light: Re-examinging College Admissions After Fisher v. Texas

The use of race-based affirmative action in college admissions has a well-established history in the Supreme Court. But with recent trends, has it finally gone too far? Asian interest groups argue that students of Asian descent are held to different standards than their peers and are currently suing Harvard University in federal court. With quantifiable metrics supporting their case, its outcome could be different than recent cases which lacked evidentiary justification. In this paper, I first examine the legal history of race-based affirmative action and then America's legacy of discrimination against Asian immigrants. Finally, I apply the Supreme Court's prior rulings to the facts of the Harvard case and discuss potential outcomes and their implications.