An issue that’s bigger in Texas
The controversial question of what role race should play in college admissions, if any, stands again before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas. Two leading legal scholars discussed possible consequences of a decision in that case as part of the Askwith Forum last week at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Lani Guinier, the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School (HLS), teamed up with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, a professor of law at HLS and a professor of history at the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), to explore the legal background and possible outcomes of the Fisher case, which was argued recently. Brown-Nagin began by tracing affirmative action cases back to the court’s 1978 Bakke case, involving the University of California, and the 2003 Grutter case, involving the University of Michigan’s Law School. In Grutter, Brown-Nagin said, “Justice [Sandra Day]...