The White Student Suing to Overthrow Affirmative Action Was Too Dumb to Get Into Her Chosen College

[DonRedwood]

Life is tough for white people in America. A few hundred years of presumed superiority have left many of them psychologically unable to deal with failure, trapped in a cycle of victimhood where their own shortcomings can only be understood as evidence of persecution against them. So we have Abigail Fisher, 23 years old, and the plaintiff in Fisher v. University of Texas, which is currently being weighed by the Supreme Court.

Fisher, who is white, is suing the university because—well, because the full-time crusaders against affirmative action asked her to. But her ostensible complaint is that she applied to go to the University of Texas at Austin but didn't get in, while some students who are not white did get in, under the university's system of weighing "personal circumstances," including poverty and race, in some of its admissions. Ergo, under the logic of anti-reverse racism, some undeserving minority student took her spot.

But this week, Pro Publica published a look into the actual circumstances surrounding University of Texas admissions when Fisher applied. And that the reason Fisher didn't get in was that she wasn't qualified.

Yet even for those, Pro Publica reports, Fisher and her backer Edward Blum can't say she was cheated because of her race:

niversity officials claim in court filings that even if Fisher received points for her race and every other personal achievement factor, the letter she received in the mail still would have said no.

It's true that the university, for whatever reason, offered provisional admission to some students with lower test scores and grades than Fisher. Five of those students were black or Latino. Forty-two were white.

Neither Fisher nor Blum mentioned those 42 applicants in interviews. Nor did they acknowledge the 168 black and Latino students with grades as good as or better than Fisher's who were also denied entry into the university that year. Also left unsaid is the fact that Fisher turned down a standard UT offer under which she could have gone to the university her sophomore year if she earned a 3.2 GPA at another Texas university school in her freshman year.

http://gawker.com/5991588/the-white-student-suing-to-overthrow-affirmative-action-was-too-dumb-to-get-into-her-chosen-college

http://www.propublica.org/article/a-colorblind-constitution-what-abigail-fishers-affirmative-action-case-is-r

OK...so I'm quoting the gawker article because I thought their take on this was pretty hilarious, then I am quoting the part of Propublica's article that gawker was quoting...so, I'm putting both links. Gawker is snide. Propublica's is more newslike and upstanding...but both share a pretty amazing story. Give one of them a read.

I'm really looking forward to your comments about this case!

[Blue_Tires]

1. I wonder who's bankrolling her legal team

Whoever it is, they hitched their wagon to a loser of a case...

[DonRedwood]

2. I'm not even sure how she can be suing in the first place.

What a waste of time and money. Especially since they said she could go if she raised her gpa.

[Blue_Tires]

4. Like the others said, some RW group is trying to make her a political cause celebre...

[petronius]

3. I chortled at this paragraph:

So having failed to work hard enough in high school to get into the University of Texas directly, Fisher was unwilling to do the work to win a transfer slot there. When will white people stop wallowing in their victim status and put some effort into improving themselves, like regular Americans do? It will be a shame if the Supreme Court chooses to reward this kind of dysfunctional identity politics.

[gordianot]

5. She needs to team up with all of those persecuted Christians in Merica. n/t

[xfundy]

6. White folks just can't catch a break.

In FoxNoise, Texas.

[Arcanetrance]

7. Affirmative action does actually benefit poor whites as well

I know a lot of times it seems they overlook that fact.

[1StrongBlackMan]

12. And ...

historically and numerically, has benefitted white women of all economic groupings, far more than any racial grouping. But they seem to overlook that, too.

[Unrepentant Fenian]

8. Sounds like she's qualified for a job as Sarah Palin's assistant! n/t

[Hoyt]

9. University of Texas already has enough Young Racist Republicans.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

10. Thanks for posting

I didn't realize all the circumstances surrounding her case. Looks like she doesn't really have a case. When are we supposed to hear the SC verdict on this?

[1StrongBlackMan]

13. Well ...

didn't you hear .... Higher education is a "continuing racial entitlement"?

[1StrongBlackMan]

11. When I first read of the Fisher Case ...

I immediately went to the Lower Court filings (That's where one finds all the facts of a case) ... and just as I thought, as in every "reverse discrimination" (whatever the hell that is) case, from Bakke forward, the Lower Court's findings of fact revealed better scoring, and also rejected, African-American and Hispanic candidates stood between her and her admission AND lower scoring white students that were admitted over her AND those better scoring African-American and Hispanic candidates.

But the media ignored all of that ... showing once again, many whites want to believe a Black person "took their spot", regardless of the facts.

I have moderated many a conversation where a company has hired (in one case) 200 workers (197 white and 3 non-white) and the 201 white person will claim that one of the three non-white hires "took their spot"; but apparently the thought een more qualifiednever crossed their mind that the 3 may have had better qualifications, or that even one of the 197 actually "took their spot."

[Initech]

14. If the judge sees her report card I bet this gets laughed out of court.

[Quantess]

15. My comment:

This is bait for anyone who is interested in a serious discussion of the topic, and is looking for "ridiculous shit the other side says".

Okay, that was my comment.

[xtraxritical]

16. In my not politically correct view affirmitive action is perpetuating racism and should be dropped.

This is true for all races.

[noiretextatique]

25. how so?

how could legalized segregation and jim crow, which was undoubtedly racist, exist for over 100 years in this country without any damaging effects to non-whites? and how is it that the remedy to that real problem (that existed for maybe 20 years), and become "perpetuatimg racism' because it supposed damaged the same group who benefitted from legalized racism and exclusion in the first place?
it really boggles the mind to hear that a redress for centuries of racism and exclusion to magically turn into racism
if anything, AA should have been explanded to include other historically excluded groups, including poor white people. chalk another one up to the ruling class for divinging and conquering. meanwhile...their children don't have to worrry about getting into college because lagacy admissions are just fine.

[gollygee]

17. People who aren't qualified for jobs

seem to blame affirmative action for them not being selected pretty often. I've seen it in my life. If a black person gets the job they wanted, the ASSUME it was because of affirmative action. And there are so many nasty assumptions behind that. Like if a white person and a black person both apply for the job, the white person must be the most qualified and should be hired. A good example of why we need affirmative action, because before it, that's what hiring decisions looked like.

Without affirmative action, we would have (and did have) negative action. "Last Hired, First Fired." It should be called "balancing action" or something, because all it does is hopefully balance the negative, at least somewhat.

[noiretextatique]

27. this was a successful rw divide and conquer issue

because it tapped into white resentment/entitlement, and not just on the teabagger side of the spectrum. it also pitted working class whites against african-americans...another familiar ploy of the rw. AA should have been expanded, not decimated.

[we can do it]

18. Stupid fucking bitch.

Yes, she is a stupid bitch....The NAACP has made advancement for many qualified women possible. She needs to crawl back under her rock.

[tularetom]

19. How the hell did an idiotic lawsuit like this get as far as the Supreme Court?

The lower courts must have written mealy mouthed opinions that allowed the plaintiff to think she actually had a chance of getting her silly ass suit upheld.

I'm no lawyer nor do I play one on TV but unless I'm reading this wrong there is no merit to this atall. Our courts have a lot of more pressing things to do than fuck around with crap like this.

[gollygee]

20. You know how folks on the right like to call more leaning judges "activist judges?"

The right has plenty of activist judges and are in no position to throw stones. My guess is that activist judge after activist judge with private agendas to end affirmative action have been involved.

[alp227]

23. Funny, I thought conservatives were against frivolous lawsuits n/t

[jeff47]

24. She's being bankrolled nicely.

It got that far because someone keeps paying for her to lose over and over again.

[Generation_Why]

21. I am against affirmative action, but in this case the more qualified students got in...

So she needs to suck it up and admit to herself she's just not all that.

Qualifications should trump race, gender, or sexual orientation.

[ZRT2209]

31. then you don't understand history

Read some Massey and Denton. Then read about concept of "lock in."

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018211

http://www.amazon.com/American-Apartheid-Segregation-Making-Underclass/dp/0674018214

This powerful and disturbing book clearly links persistent poverty among blacks in the United States to the unparalleled degree of deliberate segregation they experience in American cities.

American Apartheid shows how the black ghetto was created by whites during the first half of the twentieth century in order to isolate growing urban black populations. It goes on to show that, despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968, segregation is perpetuated today through an interlocking set of individual actions, institutional practices, and governmental policies. In some urban areas the degree of black segregation is so intense and occurs in so many dimensions simultaneously that it amounts to "hypersegregation."

--

"No understanding of racial dynamics in the United States can be complete without a working knowledge of segregation, and Massey & Denton's exploration of the subject leaves little to be debated. Creatively and expertly researched, the book thoroughly documents the methods and strategies employed by whites in the ongoing battle for wealth and property in the United States. Particularly damning are the chapters on institutional racism, segregation and the links between governmental policy and the disastrous course of racial equality in the 20th century. While I think Massey & Denton leave a little to be desired in their cultural critique and suggestions for improvement, their research is so well presented and argued that even conservative Charles Murray (who authored the exemplar of late 20th century scientific racism, The Bell Curve) recommends the book. Get this book. It will change the way you think about race and wealth in America."

..

"It pulls back the curtain on the real-estate industry's malfeasance vis-a-vis black Americans. And, more importantly, it reveals the systemic collusion of local, state and federal gov't in said matter. All of them acted as "dis"-honest brokers who, for half a century, targeted blacks for ghetto-ization in the form of urban (Indian-like) reservations.

Housing discrimination - A metastatic aspect of racism which has befouled the land for 145 years."

---

"This book is more painful to read than Eichmann in Jerusalem, Germinal, or the pornographic The Rehnquist Choice by John Dean. But everyone should try. The book first describes how white Americans have kept their residential neighborhoods white since about 1920. Initially by simply murdering African-Americans trying to move in. Then with widespread restrictive deed covenants. More recently, with loan institution redlining, and low-income public housing under-funding and ripoffs. Most recently, add, with pervasive real estate agent ruses, misdirection, and discouragement. This history needed telling clearly and succinctly. Subsequently, the book defines "apartheid" rigorously and identifies it in sixteen urban areas in the country, urban areas containing a substantial percentage of all African-Americans. The book then looks at the living conditions of the most isolated, homeless and hopeless, drug-and-violence-obsessed African-Americans, and identifies apartheid as a cause, if not the cause, of these conditions.

John Dean's book says that Nixon in the early 1970's required his three Supreme Court appointees, the most important of whom was Chief Justice William Rehnquist, to be "right" on the race-residential question and, essentially, to look with disfavor on federal efforts to enforce the Fair Housing Act with respect to single-family homes. Consequently, American residential neighborhoods -- already less integrated in 1970 than in 1920 -- are less integrated now than in 1970. Between 1920 and 1970 the racial prejudice of individuals probably could be blamed. In the thirty-five years since Rehnquist commenced to "put his stamp" on the United States Supreme Court, it's been the snowballing insanity of our electoral system and its deformed progenies, based on money and gerrymandering undisturbed by Court rulings, that get the credit."

[ZRT2209]

32. in my view your view is simplistic and you have not read the relevant scholarship

read the scholarly research and relevant articles on Google Scholars. You are missing a lot of information.

[nomorenomore08]

22. So misguided, to see AA as some kind of injustice, rather than an admittedly imperfect attempt

to remedy injustice.

[noiretextatique]

26. +1000 can't have ANY white person excluded

but centuries of exlcuding non-whites was just fine...and now we all colorblind total bullshit.

[ZRT2209]

33. Amen - according to some, it is far better that

thousands of qualified minority students should be denied opportunities, generationally, with no redress at college admissions level, than one mediocre white student not get 100% of what she wants when she wants it handed to her on a silver platter with air kisses.

[Javaman]

28. Huh so a self entitled moron doesn't realize their stupid.

that never happens.

[ZRT2209]

29. how many times are we going to re-try this same case?

[Politicalboi]

30. What's Sarah Palin doing now

6 colleges in 5 years I assume it's her we are talking about.

All those foreigners in Hawaii.