For Fisher, it wasn't about race

A lot has happened in the past week. Kim revealed the dumb name she’s going to curse her child with.

The Supreme Court dropped DOMA like the Food Network dropped Paula Deen.

Chris Brown was charged with a misdemeanor for a hit-and-run, because punching people doesn’t do it for him anymore.

And the Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin case ... well, it really made no progress.

Here’s what’s up: Abigail Fisher applied to UT back in 2008 and was rejected. She then proceeded to sue the university, claiming the university’s admission process is racist against her (she’s white).

UT is one of many colleges that looks to increase its minority population through the admission process.

But race actually plays a very small part in the admissions process. UT goes by a code called the Top Ten Percent Law. Under the law, all Texan high school students graduating in the top-10 percent of their respective classes are granted automatic admission to any public state college or university.

Those who don’t fall into that top-10 percent — roughly 12 percent of all applicants — are put through a process of more rigorous admission consideration that focuses on their academic performance, extracurricular activities, socioeconomic status, personal hardship, work experience, excellence of application materials and multiple other factors including race.

But because race plays any part at all, Fisher claims the university is in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

First, I would like to express just how stupid I think it is that five years later, she’s still whining about this.

It’s not like her rejection to UT kept Fisher from attending college. She was accepted to Louisiana State University.

She’s already graduated. She has a job as a financial analyst. She’s probably making more than I will the first three years after I get out of college.

Her seemingly problematic whiteness hasn’t really done much to hurt her.

Now, this is where I admit I’m not a fan of some facets of Affirmative Action.

As an African American, I want to know I was accepted to IU because my grades were good, not because my father is black.

For me, senior year of high school was a blur of AP classes, pre-calculus homework and all-nighters. I basically had to write a novel to graduate high school.

Getting into IU told me my work had paid off.

Thinking I was admitted to my dream college only because of my skin color is kind of insulting.

That being said, I also am not a fan of little white girls throwing down the race card like it’s a weapon because they didn’t work hard enough to get into their first pick.

Her accusations imply the few black people competing for the remaining spots at UT only got in because they were black — that she only was denied admission because she wasn’t black.

This isn’t true.

It’s come out that she would have been denied admission regardless of race based on admission criteria for non-top 10 percent students.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself questioned whether the case was moot because of this.

Even Louisiana State, her alma mater, has programs designed to increase diversity.

So if she hadn’t been accepted there, would she be suing them too?

In this case, I’m in favor of UT.

The percentage of minorities at the university doesn’t come close to properly representing the number of minorities in Texas.

Her main competition came from people of her own race. She wasn’t rejected because of race.

She was rejected because she didn’t have the grades.

If you’re not smart enough to get in, blame yourself. Don’t blame “reverse racism.”

­— lnbanks@indiana.edu