This guest blog post comes courtesy of Joseph McShane, S.J., the
president of Fordham University:  In August, Fordham
University—along with Boston College, DePaul, Georgetown, Holy
Cross, Marquette, Notre Dame, and San Francisco—filed an amicus
brief before the Supreme Court in the case of Abigail Fisher
versus the University of Texas at Austin. Broadly speaking, at
issue is whether affirmative action policies are
constitutionally acceptable in the context of university
admissions.  Ms. Fisher, and another young woman who has since
dropped out of the case, applied to the University of Texas at
Austin in 2008 and were denied admission. Both women are
Caucasian. They filed suit, alleging that the university
discriminated against them on the basis of their race in
violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.  At the time Ms. Fisher applied, the University of
Texas at Austin accepted all students who graduated in the top
10 percent of every Texas high school under the University’s Top
Ten