The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments today in a fight over whether colleges can consider applicants' race as a factor in admissions.
While the fate of millions of young people is at stake, the case began with a slight, strawberry blonde woman: 22-year-old Abigail Fisher.
Here's everything we know about the woman behind the Supreme Court battle:
- Fisher's from Sugar Land, Texas, and her father and her sister both went to University of Texas at Austin, according to the Houston Chronicle.
- Fisher, who "bled burnt orange," dreamed of going there too since the second grade, the Chronicle reported.
- The aspiring UT student went on to earn a 3.59 grade point average on a 4.0 scale and finished as number 82 in her 674-person class at Stephen F. Austin High School, according to the Chronicle.
- She also played soccer and volunteered, according to The New York Times.
- But that wasn't enough to get her accepted to her dream school of UT.
- The school automatically accepts the top 10 percent from every high school. For students who don't get in that way, UT takes a number of other factors into account–including race.
- After getting rejected in 2008, Fisher filed suit claiming UT's use of race in admissions decisions was unconstitutional. UT says it would have rejected her even if it hadn't considered her race.
- In any event, Fisher had to get on with her life, so she went on to Louisiana State University. That school has the lowest percentage of blacks of all the state's public universities, according to LSU's hometown paper, the Advocate.
- Fisher, an accomplished cellist, finished LSU and scored a job as a financial analyst in Austin, the town where she wanted to go to school, The New York Times reported.
While Fisher apparently enjoyed her undergraduate years–the Times noted she enjoyed the "camraderie" of her LSU bowling team–she still thinks she missed out by not going to UT.
"Just being in a network of UT graduates would have been a really nice thing to be in," Fisher told the Times. "And I probably would have gotten a better job offer had I gone to UT."
SEE ALSO: Here's How The Supreme Court Will End Affirmative Action
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