Judge throws out rightwing affirmative action lawsuit against Texas university

A year after the US supreme court ended race-conscious admissions in higher education throughout the country, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit claiming that the University of Texas at Austin continued to unlawfully use affirmative action policies. The lawsuit, initially filed in 2020 by Edward Blum’s legal advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), signals a setback to the conservative activist’s movement.

On Monday, the US district judge Robert Pitman ruled that UT Austin’s revised admission policies are lawful under the US constitution’s 14th amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 2020, SFFA – the same group that successfully challenged race-conscious admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina – claimed that at least two of its members had been “denied the opportunity to compete for admission to UT-Austin on equal footing with other applicants on the basis of race or ethnicity because of UT-Austin’s discriminatory admissions policies”, according to the lawsuit.

The case was dismissed in 2021, but then SFFA appealed. In the meantime, the group filed two similar cases against universities in SFFA v Harvard-UNC, and the resulting ruling on 29 June 2023 in effect struck down affirmative action on US campuses. UT Austin revised its policies to comply with the US supreme court ruling beginning in the fall 2023 admissions cycle, but SFFA argued that the university continued to consider race in its admissions.

“As part of this new policy, UT Austin has instructed its admissions officers and employees accordingly, and it has also created new processes to train and supervise its admissions officers and employees to ensure that they do not consider race or ethnicity as a factor in the admissions process. Accordingly, UT Austin no longer considers race or ethnicity,” Pitman, a Barack Obama-appointed judge, wrote in his decision. “It would be nonsensical for the Court to issue an injunction in light of the fact that UT Austin does not currently consider race or ethnicity in the admissions process.”

Critics of the UT Austin lawsuit saw Monday’s ruling as a blow to Blum’s anti-affirmative action movement.

“Despite their efforts to extend the supreme court’s Harvard ruling and aim to further diminish diversity on campuses, their strategy backfired,” David Hinojosa, the director of the Educational Opportunities Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement . “The Lawyers’ Committee, together with our partners, remain committed to defending students’ rights, promoting diversity and justice, and ensuring equal opportunities for all qualified students. We are undeterred by Blum’s attempts to compromise fairness and civil rights.”