The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sent a University of Texas affirmative action case back to a lower court for review.
The 7-1 ruling did not overturn a 2003 decision in which the court held that colleges could use race as a factor in its admissions process as part of its efforts to create a diverse student body. In the new ruling, justices said the lower court failed to apply strict scrutiny to the Texas policy.
The new ruling is unlikely to have much impact in Georgia. The state’s public colleges haven’t used affirmative action since the University of Georgia saw its own admissions policy ruled unconstitutional in 2001 by a federal appeals court.
Still, the state will monitor the issue as the nation’s highest court is scheduled to hear another affirmative action case next term.
That case asks whether a voter-approved ban on affirmative action in Michigan college admissions can itself violate the Constitution.
Read the ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin here.
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