On October 10, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the oral argument in “Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin”-- a case about that university’s use of race in deciding undergraduate admissions.
And Saturday, September 22 on C-SPAN Radio’s Historic Supreme Court oral argument: A case cited in “Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin.” From 2003: “Barbara Grutter, petitioner v. Lee Bollinger, the president of the University of Michigan and others, respondents.”
In 1997 Barbara Grutter, a white resident of Michigan, applied for admission to the University of Michigan law school. She applied with a 3.8 undergraduate grade point average and an LSAT score of 161, but was denied admission. The law school admitted that it used race as a factor in making admissions decisions because it served a "compelling interest in achieving diversity among its student body." The District Court concluded that the law school's stated interest in achieving diversity in the student body was not a compelling one and barred its use of race in the admissions process. But, In reversing, the Court of Appeals held that the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in 1978’s “Regents of the University of California v. Bakke” constituted a binding precedent establishing diversity as a compelling governmental interest to justify the use of racial preferences in admissions.
Listen to the courtroom recording of the oral argument in the 2003 case "Grutter v. Bollinger”--Saturday, September 22 at 7 pm ET on C-SPAN Radio: 90.1 FM in the Washington, DC area, online at cspanradio.org and nationwide on XM Satellite Radio, channel 119. The audio and information in this program are courtesy of the Oyez project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law at: http://www.oyez.org/