AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ An appeals court will consider a lawsuit that claims undergraduate admissions policies at the University of Texas at Austin violate the Constitution and federal law.
A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday is scheduled to take up the case filed in 2008 by two white students who were denied admission.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks of Austin in August 2009 dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the university’s use of race and ethnicity as factors in admissions is constitutionally acceptable. The students appealed.
UT vice president for legal affairs Patti Ohlendorf says the school believes its admission system is within U.S. Supreme Court guidelines.
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