Hopwood V. Texas - The Case

The Case

After being rejected by the University of Texas School of Law in 1992, Cheryl J. Hopwood filed a federal lawsuit against the University on September 29, 1992 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. Hopwood, a white female, was denied admission to the law school despite being better qualified than many admitted minority candidates. Originally, Hopwood's co-plaintiff was Stephanie C. Haynes, but Haynes was dismissed from the suit on February 11, 1993. Ultimately, three white males, Douglas Carvell, Kenneth Elliott, and David Rogers, joined the existing lawsuit as plaintiffs alleging claims similar to Hopwood's. All had better combined LSAT and grade scores than 36 of the 43 Latinos admitted, and 16 of the 18 black students admitted. The case was presided over by United States District Judge Sam Sparks (who had graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1963.)

The plaintiffs were represented by a number of attorneys, including Steven Wayne Smith, a conservative Austin lawyer. (He later used his recognition from the case to be elected to the Texas Supreme Court). The University was represented pro bono by the well-respected law firm, Vinson and Elkins.

Texas Monthly editor Paul Burka later described Cheryl Hopwood as "the perfect plaintiff to question the fairness of reverse discrimination" because of her academic credentials and the personal hardships she had endured (including a young daughter suffering from a muscular disease).

After an eight-day bench trial in May 1994, Judge Sparks issued his ruling on August 19, 1994. He determined that the University could continue to use the racial preferences which had been at issue in the litigation. In his ruling, he noted that while it was "regrettable that affirmative action programs are still needed in our society," they were still "a necessity" until society could overcome its legacy of institutional racism. Thereupon, the four plaintiffs appealed the case to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. It heard appellate oral arguments in the case on August 8, 1995.

Nearly two years after the original trial, on March 18, 1996, the Fifth Circuit issued its opinion, which was written by Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith. The court held that "the University of Texas School of Law may not use race as a factor in deciding which applicants to admit in order to achieve a diverse student body, to combat the perceived effects of a hostile environment at the law school, to alleviate the law school's poor reputation in the minority community, or to eliminate any present effects of past discrimination by actors other than the law school." Judge Jacques Weiner concurred in the judgment. Rehearing was denied on April 4, 1996.

Represented pro bono by noted constitutional law scholar and Harvard University professor Laurence Tribe, the University appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to review the case on July 1, 1996. In an opinion on the denial of certiorari, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justice David Souter, noted that the issue of the constitutionality of race in admission was "an issue of great national importance.". However, Justice Ginsburg explained that the University was no longer defending the specific admissions policy that had been at issue in the lawsuit and was rather attempting to justify only the rationale for maintaining a race-based admissions policy. Accordingly, because the Supreme Court reviews judgments and not opinions, Justice Ginsburg stated that it "must await a final judgment on a program genuinely in controversy before addressing the important question raised in this petition." Thus, the Hopwood decision became the final law of the land with respect to the use of race in admissions in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas (the three states over which the Fifth Circuit maintained jurisdiction).