Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin was a constitutional challenge brought by Abigail Fisher, a white applicant denied admission in 2008, who argued the university’s consideration of race in its holistic review violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court heard the case twice. In 2013, it sent the case back to the lower courts and demanded a more rigorous application of strict scrutiny. In 2016, by a 4-3 vote, it upheld the university’s admissions program. Seven years later, in 2023, the Court effectively overruled Fisher when it struck down race-conscious admissions in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
How UT Austin’s Admissions Worked
Understanding the case starts with understanding what Fisher was actually challenging. UT Austin used two admissions tracks. The first was automatic. Under Texas House Bill 588, any student graduating in the top ten percent of a Texas high school class was guaranteed admission to any public university in the state.1Texas Legislature. Texas HB 588 Enrolled Version By the time Fisher applied, that track filled up to 75 percent of the university’s available freshman seats.2Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Fisher v University of Texas at Austin
Everyone else competed through holistic review. The university generated two scores: an Academic Index based on SAT results and high school performance, and a Personal Achievement Index drawn from essays, leadership, extracurriculars, awards, community service, and a full-file review.2Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Fisher v University of Texas at Austin
Race entered the process at exactly one point. Within the Personal Achievement Score, a file reader assessing “special circumstances” could consider race alongside socioeconomic status, single-parent household status, and the language spoken at home. The admissions officers who made the final decisions never saw an applicant’s race, only the combined numerical scores.2Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Fisher v University of Texas at Austin The university’s position was that the Top Ten Percent Plan boosted overall minority enrollment but still left individual classrooms and programs lacking diversity.
What Abigail Fisher Argued
Fisher did not graduate in the top ten percent of her class, so she went through holistic review and was denied. She sued in the Western District of Texas, arguing that the university’s use of race disadvantaged her as a white applicant and violated the Equal Protection Clause.3Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Fisher v University of Texas Her core position: a public university cannot sort applicants by race, and UT Austin could hit its diversity goals through the Top Ten Percent Plan without any racial classification.
Because the university was a government institution using race, the case triggered strict scrutiny, the most demanding form of judicial review. To survive it, UT Austin had to prove two things. First, that its use of race served a compelling governmental interest. The Court had already accepted in Grutter v. Bollinger that the educational benefits of a diverse student body qualified.4Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Grutter v Bollinger Second, that its policy was narrowly tailored, meaning race-neutral alternatives would not achieve the same result and the use of race was no broader than necessary. The burden sat entirely on the university.
Fisher I (2013): The First Supreme Court Ruling
The case first reached the Supreme Court in 2013 as Fisher v. University of Texas, 570 U.S. 297. The Fifth Circuit had upheld UT Austin’s policy by essentially accepting the university’s own claims about narrow tailoring. The Supreme Court, voting 7-1, sent the case back.3Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Fisher v University of Texas
Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion drew a line. Universities do get some deference in defining what diversity benefits they seek. They get none on whether their specific methods are narrowly tailored to achieve those benefits. The Fifth Circuit had blurred the two, giving the university a pass on tailoring simply because its goals were legitimate. That was not strict scrutiny.5Supreme Court of the United States. 570 US 297 – Fisher v University of Texas at Austin
Justice Ginsburg was the lone dissenter. Justice Kagan took no part, having worked on the case as solicitor general before joining the Court.5Supreme Court of the United States. 570 US 297 – Fisher v University of Texas at Austin The ruling did not decide whether UT Austin’s program was constitutional. It required the lower courts to make that call using genuine, evidence-based review rather than deference.
Fisher II (2016): The Policy Upheld
After the lower courts applied the stricter analysis, the case came back. In June 2016, the Supreme Court upheld UT Austin’s program in a 4-3 decision, 579 U.S. 365.2Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Fisher v University of Texas at Austin Justice Scalia had died earlier that year and Justice Kagan again recused, leaving seven justices.
Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, the first time he had ever voted to uphold a race-conscious admissions plan. He found that UT Austin had done the work. The university had studied years of admissions data, could show that the Top Ten Percent Plan alone was not producing meaningful diversity within individual classrooms and programs, and used race in a limited way inside a broader holistic review.6Supreme Court of the United States. Fisher v University of Texas at Austin That combination satisfied narrow tailoring.
The opinion attached a condition. The approval was not permanent. UT Austin had an ongoing duty to reassess whether race-conscious admissions remained necessary. If race-neutral alternatives eventually proved sufficient, the use of race would have to stop.
How the 2023 Ruling Changed Everything
In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College that race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina violated the Equal Protection Clause.7Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Students for Fair Admissions Inc v President and Fellows of Harvard College Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority, concluding that racial diversity was too “imponderable” an objective to justify racial classifications under strict scrutiny, that the programs used race negatively, and that they had no meaningful endpoint.
The decision dismantled the framework Fisher II had relied on. The line of precedent running from Bakke (1978) through Grutter (2003) to Fisher (2016) was set aside.7Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Students for Fair Admissions Inc v President and Fellows of Harvard College The Court left one narrow opening: universities may still consider how race affected an individual applicant’s life as described in that applicant’s own essays, provided the applicant is judged on personal character and experience rather than racial identity itself. UT Austin removed race from its holistic review following the ruling.
Why Fisher Still Matters
The 2023 decision ended race-conscious admissions, but Fisher’s contributions to constitutional law did not disappear with it. Fisher I’s core holding, that strict scrutiny requires real judicial examination rather than deference to administrators, continues to govern how courts evaluate any government classification by race. That principle reaches well beyond university admissions.
Fisher II showed what strict scrutiny actually looks like when a public institution tries to satisfy it: years of data collection, classroom-level analysis, and documented proof that race-neutral options fell short. In the years between Grutter and Fisher, many universities had treated judicial deference as a given. Fisher required them to build a record. The case also stands as a reminder of how fast constitutional doctrine can turn. The same admissions policy that survived the Court’s most demanding review in 2016 became categorically unconstitutional seven years later.