Who's Qualified? Seeing Race in ColorBlind Times: Lessons fromFisher v. University of Texas

Abstract

This chapter examines the policy arguments advanced in Fisher v. University of Texas, an antiracial diversity in higher education case argued before the United States Supreme Court. The author contends that the arguments put forth by the petitioner are intended not only to frame White people as the expressed victims of opportunity-expanding policies, such as diversity, but also to construct people of color as undeserving of admissions to one of America's most preeminent public institutions of higher education. In addition to being ahistorical, the anti-diversity arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas purposely dismiss the structural arrangements and institutionalized practices responsible for the development of the University of Texas's diversity policy. The chapter concludes with a recommendation for a multidiscipline approach to education policy analysis in order to better understand and contextualize how race is operationalized in contemporary public policy debates.In 1942… segregation was considered fair. –Terry H. Anderson… the fact that special treatment for minority applicants upset working and middle-class whites so much more than preferences for applicants whose parents are faculty members, alumni, or major contributors cannot be explained solely by recent Supreme Court decisions holding that any racial classifications must be reviewed with utmost suspicion.–Derrick Bell