A D.C.-based nonprofit called Project on Fair Representation today filed a 35-page federal lawsuit against the University of Texas at Austin. The suit claims that the school's admissions policies kept out a white 18-year-old high-schooler named Abigail Noel Fisher, who, says the very detailed legal docs, is sorta near the top of her class at Stephen F. Austin High School in Sugar Land (top 12 percent, at least). Says PFR's media release, the school's admission policies "discriminate[d] against [Fisher] on the basis of her race," and she "seeks to have UT-Austin re-evaluate her for admissions to the undergraduate program under race-neutral criteria."
Expect to hear plenty more about this suit, at least from Project on Fair Representation: It's holding media conferences tomorrow in Dallas and Houston to further discuss the litigation. And the nonprofit's also begun a Web site called UT Not Fair, where other rejected applicants can make their case to, ya know, join the suit. --Robert Wilonsky
