UT Admissions, Again.

In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. UT-Austin, the Fifth Circuit addressed whether challenges to both the university’s old and revised admissions policies were moot. The Court held that claims related to the university’s pre-2023 admissions policy, which explicitly considered race, were moot because the policy had been formally repealed and replaced in response to the Supreme Court’s Harvard decision.

However, the Court found that the controversy over the university’s revised, post-2023 admissions policy remained live and was not moot. The new policy, while facially race-neutral, still allowed admissions officers access to applicants’ racial data during the admissions process, which the plaintiff alleged could enable continued discrimination. The court emphasized that “as long as the parties have a concrete interest, however small, in the outcome of the litigation, the case is not moot,” and concluded that the plaintiff had not yet secured all the relief it sought. No. 24-50631, July 11, 2025.