University of Texas’s New Admissions Process Survives Race Suit

University of Texas at Austin should no longer face claims over its process for accepting undergraduate students because the school stopped considering race or ethnicity as factors, a federal judge said Monday.

The university revised its admissions practices to reflect the US Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College last year that held race-based decisions are unconstitutional, Judge Robert Pitman of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas said. As such, a lawsuit the university faced for its admissions choices prior to the high court’s decision is now moot, Pitman said, emphasizing “a live case or controversy no longer exists.”

UT previously filled three-fourths of its freshman class through an automatic admissions process on the basis of class rank. The rest of the class was filled through a review calculus that included race as one of many factors. In 2016, the Supreme Court sided with UT in a challenge to the school’s use of race as a factor in the admissions process it used at the time.

Students for Fair Admissions Inc., an anti-preferences organization run by former stockbroker Ed Blum, brought a new lawsuit against UT’s admissions process in 2020. The organization—which also filed the suit in the Harvard case— argued successfully to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that its claims against UT weren’t barred by the 2016 Supreme Court ruling.

On remand at the district court, the organization then argued UT despite no longer using race as an admission factor after the 2023 SCOTUS decision must still face claims because its prior practices were unlawful. But that argument fails because the changes were compelled by law through the high court, Pitman said.

Students for Fair Admissions is represented by Consovoy McCarthy PLLC. University of Texas is represented by Graves Dougherty Hearon & Moody. Students and groups that intervened in support of UT are represented by Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

The case is Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Univ. of Tex. at Austin, W.D. Tex., No. 1:20-cv-463, 7/15/24.