Opponents of affirmative action in college admissions are hoping they can cripple the positive discrimination measure — if not outright kill it — when the Supreme Court takes up the issue Wednesday.

The University of Texas at Austin says students learn better when there’s diversity on campus and within racial groups. But lawyers for a woman who was denied admission to the school say that’s too vague a standard to justify distinctions based on race.

Opponents of affirmative action in college admissions are hoping they can cripple the positive discrimination measure — if not outright kill it — when the Supreme Court takes up the issue Wednesday.

The University of Texas at Austin says students learn better when there’s diversity on campus and within racial groups. But lawyers for a woman who was denied admission to the school say that’s too vague a standard to justify distinctions based on race.

When the appeals court ruled in favor of Texas, opponents went back to the Supreme Court, and the justices agreed to take another look — even though the student, Abigail Fisher, graduated from a different university three years ago and is well past having a direct stake in the outcome.

“The very fact that this conservative Supreme Court reviews every decision upholding the program leads you to believe that the justices are very skeptical, and limitations on affirmative action are coming,” says Tom Goldstein, publisher of SCOTUSblog and a Washington, D.C., lawyer who argues before the court.

Racially segregated by law for its first 70 years — the school did not admit the first African-American until 1950 — the University of Texas at Austin has tried several means of increasing minority enrollment. A state law now guarantees admission to students in roughly the top 10 percent of the graduating class of any Texas high school.

To fill the remaining slots, about one fifth of each entering class, the school considers several other factors, including an applicant’s race.

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