Supreme Court Sends Affirmative Action Case Back to Lower Courts

By Kirsten Petersen

In a 7-1 decision, the Supreme Court chose not to rule on the constitutionality of affirmative action, instead sending the case back to the lower courts for further review, according to the Associated Press.

This ruling in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin delays a decision about whether school admissions policies that give preference to racial minorities violate the U.S. Constitution’s protection of equal rights, Reuters reports.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the court opinion, said that the federal appeals court must evaluate the University of Texas admissions plan with more scrutiny before it can be reviewed again by the Supreme Court, according to the AP.

Justice Elena Kagan did not participate, possibly because she had encountered the case while working in the Justice Department, the AP reports.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the only dissenter, writing in her opinion that the evaluation by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals was complete and that the university had reasonably determined that race-neutral initiatives would not achieve the “educational benefits of student-body diversity.”