On University of Texas' Flagship Campus, Soul-Searching over Diversity

The author reports on a Supreme Court case that is echoing across the University of Texas at Austin, and for some students, it is personal. Not long after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Abigail Fisher's case against the University of Texas at Austin, a lighthearted joke made the rounds at the Warfield Center for African and African-American Studies here on the flagship campus. At its core was a high-energy fifth-year student from Houston named Tedra Jacobs. Ms. Jacobs, an administrative assistant at the center, was admitted in 2008 as part of the freshman class Ms. Fisher had sought to join. Neither Ms. Jacobs nor Ms. Fisher graduated in the top 10 percent of her high-school class, a status that would have entitled her to admission under Texas law. So both were considered for admission under the university's "holistic review" policy, which includes race and ethnicity among many factors in weighing applications. Ms. Jacobs, the daughter of a single black mother and a white father, got in. Ms. Fisher was rejected, and promptly sued. The case resonates so clearly, some say, because it involves their own university. But they also take the legal arguments and policy debates to heart.