The U.S. Supreme Court reviewed a case Wednesday that could deal a detrimental blow to college affirmative action practices.

NBC News reports a woman who was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin returned to court a second time, fighting against the college's consideration of race in its admission process.

Abigail Fisher originally brought her case before the Court in 2012. After sitting on the matter for eight months, the case agreed that campus diversity was important to maintain, but sent the case to the lower Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for review. Ultimately, the appeals court ruled in favor of Texas, leading to return to the Supreme Court to review the case once more.

"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," said Tom Goldstein, lawyer and publisher of SCOTUSblog.

CNN reports the justices indeed felt divided on the case Wednesday, with the hearing stretching past the one-hour allotted time.

While the three liberal judges were largely in favor of the University's affirmative action plan, the conservative members of the bench were more critical of UT's arguments.

Justice Anthony Kennedy is expected to provide a key swing vote on the matter. He seemed conflicted, suggesting that the case again be sent to a lower court as "additional fact finding" was required.

Many supporters of affirmative action believe the case may have a broad, negative influence of college admission practices nationwide, preventing universities from considering race to increase campus diversity.

The University of Texas relies primarily the Top Ten Percent program, a state law that allows top students to be admitted to their public university of choice, to form its entering class. For remaining students, race and other factors are considered.

Fisher, who has since graduated from another institution, sued UT believing that she was discriminated against as a white woman.

"UT failed to show that its pre-existing race-neutral admissions program could not achieve the desired level of diversity," her lawyers argued. "By holding that UT discriminated against Ms. Fisher and reversing the judgment below, the Court will not only vindicate her equal-protection rights, it will remind universities that the use of race in admissions must be a last resort - not the rule."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor is one of the strongest supporters of affirmative action on the bench. In her 2013 book, "My Beloved World," she wrote of the impact affirmative action had on her life.

"The Daily Princetonian routinely published letters to the editor lamenting the presence on campus of 'affirmative action students,' each one of whom had presumably displaced a far more deserving affluent white male and could rightly be expected to crash into the gutter built of her own unrealistic aspirations. There were vultures circling, ready to dive when we stumbled. The pressure to succeed was relentless, even if self-imposed out of fear and insecurity."