The Supreme Court on Thursday said University of Texas admission officials may consider the race of student applicants in a limited way to build a diverse student body.

The 4-to-3 decision was a surprising win for advocates of affirmative action, who say the benefits of diversity at the nation’s colleges and universities are worth the intrusion on the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection that generally forbids the government from making decisions based on racial classifications.

The specific case was brought in 2008 by Abigail Fisher, a white woman who was denied admission to the university. Her suit was organized and funded by a conservative legal organization that opposes racial preferences in government and brought the challenge that resulted in the justices striking a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

The University of Texas has a unique admissions system. The top students in each Texas high school are guaranteed admission to the flagship campus in Austin. Because many high schools are made up overwhelmingly of Hispanic or African American students, that assures a certain amount of diversity in the freshman class.

But university administrators said it was important to be able to at least consider race in admitting the rest of the freshman class to ensure the kind of diversity that they said was crucial to creating a learning environment that would benefit all students.

Several states — including large ones such as California, Florida and Michigan — already forbid the use of race in admitting students to their universities.

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(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Alex Brandon