Supreme Court seems divided over University of Texas race-conscious admissions

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday once again displayed its deep divide over when race can be considered in college admission decisions in a contentious hour and a half of oral arguments about a limited race-conscious plan used by the University of Texas at Austin.

Conservatives on the court continually questioned whether the small benefit that the university derived was worth “the extraordinary power to consider race,” in the words of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Justice Antonin Scalia seemed to doubt the benefit of trying to include more minority students at the nation's selective universities. “Really competent blacks” would win admission without such considerations, he said, and those who didn't might be better off at “slower track schools where they will do better.”

The liberal justices defended the university's program as the least intrusive use of race in its goal of fostering a diverse student body that forms a better learning environment for all.

The Supreme Court in the past has decided that the use of race as one factor of a “holistic review” of an applicant is acceptable. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that if UT's limited use of race does not pass muster, she doubts whether “any holistic review (will) ever survive.”

The decision likely will come down to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the opinion two years ago when the court voted 7-1 to send the UT case back to a lower court. It told the lower court to apply the kind of rigorous evaluation that must accompany any government action that considers race.