Texas's 10% Admissions Law Seen as New Model

Beyond their Texas residency and sunny dispositions, Padron and Hunt have little in common. But both are busy adapting their calculations about the future to accommodate a five-year-old state law under which the top 10 percent of every high school's graduating seniors are automatically eligible for admission to public universities in Texas.

Now, as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs whether to rule on the constitutionality of affirmative action in college admissions, Texas's law is being scrutinized as a model that could replace the explicitly race-based admissions criteria that have been a feature of public education for decades. Following the Texas law, which first applied to high school seniors graduating in 1998, Florida and California adopted percentage plans for admission to state-funded colleges, and other states are watching Texas's experience closely.

Yes. As I was reading the article, I noticed they were still not happy with receiving the top 10% from each school, but would rather set affirmative action back in place. Eventhough Asian-American students have increased their attendance in Texas univesities, thanks to the merit of their grades, it seems some are still lamenting Hispanics and African-Americans are not well represented, although they are not scoring in the top 10%.

Also, the young man from Highland Park may, or may not, be able to get into the Business School at UT anyway. It is already a difficult program to get accepted into.

Jazmin Padron arrived in Texas three years ago, a bright-eyed Mexican teenager with little English and no thought of attending college
No mention of her legal status, but it doesn't matter since everyone in the world is now an American who just hasn't gotten here yet and is entitled to full benefits at taxpayer expense.

"to university officials, who openly regret the death of affirmative action, the 10 percent law is a way to achieve its goals without adopting the means
In other words, it is affirmative action by another name. It's another example of the sham of democracy and the rule of law in the face of the technology of mass-communication. The left controls the media, the media controls (or at least dominates) politics and society. The left can never really lose because they have the power of the media, and the media is the locus of political power in the modern age. When faced with popular opposition and legal barriers to one of their cherished programs they simply rename it, if necessary back off a little bit, and bide their time until they can reinstitute and expand it. The opposition party dare not seriously oppose them because they must abide by the rules of society set up by the Mullahs in the Church of Television, and also cannot afford to antagonize the very instituions that they depend on for their livelihood, and from which they pray for benign neglect. So if the courts or the people throw a rare monkey wrench in the Machine, the Republicans are glad to get together with their Democratic colleagues, cook up a P.R. scheme that gives Massa most of what he wants, pretend it's not a lie and thank God they are not being assailed as racists.

This really isn't that great of a plan. There are those in smaller and rural districts that are graduating in the top 10% of their class having never even had a pre-Calculus class, while others in competitive school districts get out in the top 20% and have trouble getting into A&M and t.u. I think, for those two schools, the auto figure ought to be 5%, and then 10% for the rest of the schools.

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