Posted on 06/24/2003 6:54:55 AM PDT by Theodore R.
Texas to rewrite admissions policies
BY JIM VERTUNO Associated Press Writer
AUSTIN - The University of Texas will draft new affirmative action admissions policies that include race as a factor as allowed by Monday's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, school President Larry Faulkner said Monday.
Any new policy for undergraduate admissions would have to work within the confines of the state law that entitles Texas high school students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class enrollment in a state university.
Monday's ruling ends the rule of the so-called "Hopwood" decisions by federal courts and former state Attorney General Dan Morales that prohibited race being used as a factor in admissions as well as scholarship and financial aid, Faulkner said.
"It gets to the heart of what we try to accomplish as an institution," Faulkner said. "All university leaders in the United States feel keenly their responsibility to educate the leadership of the nation. That leadership will come from all population sectors. It's important for us to have strong representation here of students from all sectors of society."
The earliest any changes could effect enrollment would be the 2004 fall freshman class. The top 10 percent rule will dominate about 70 percent of that class, leaving only about 30 percent to fall under any new race-included admissions policy.
In two separate rulings Monday, the court approved a program used at the University of Michigan law school that gives race a role in the admissions decision-making process. It struck down a separate point system used by the university to give minority preference in undergraduate admissions, but that ruling did not go as far as opponents of affirmative action had wanted.
UT had previously tried to get the Supreme Court to overturn the "Hopwood" rulings and was interested in how it ruled on the Michigan cases.
Minority state lawmakers and advocacy groups hailed the rulings.
"Today's decision is great news for students of color," said Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston. "It affirms that the doors of higher education should be open to diversity and opportunity should exist for all."
Nina Perales, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, called on all Texas universities to renew affirmative action programs.
"They create a stronger, more excellent student body," Perales said. "Affirmative action is the key to Latino educational advancement."
The Hopwood decisions stemmed from a lawsuit filed against the University of Texas law school admissions policies that considered race. The top 10 percent rule was created in 1997 to boost minority enrollment without specific race-based policies.
Faulkner said the 10 percent law has been successful in some areas, bad for universities in others.
Students who might never have considered going to college now think about it because they know they can get it in, he said. But schools also want to be able to choose some of their students with varying criteria.
"It's simply unhealthy for a whole class to be admitted on one criteria," Faulkner said.
Some state lawmakers considered tweaking the 10 percent rule to place a cap on the percentage of a freshman class it would enroll. That idea was defeated but could resurface under the Supreme Court's ruling.
The Legislature is scheduled to convene June 30 for a special session on congressional redistricting. Gov. Rick Perry could add the 10 percent rule to the session.
Brian Haley, president of the UT-Austin student government, wrote Perry on Monday urging him to add the 10 percent rule to the call of the session.
Perry spokesman Gene Acuna said the governor's office was studying the ruling's impact on Texas with Attorney General Greg Abbott. Any decision on expanding the session's issues will come after it starts, he said.
A more immediate program would likely come in graduate programs which do not fall under the 10 percent rule, Faulkner said.
Faulkner and Douglas Laycock, associate dean of the UT law school, noted the court's decision does not allow quotas and does not speak specifically to financial aid and scholarship programs.
Both said the university can consider race without a quota system and that they believe the ruling would apply to financial aid programs.
06/24/03
Not at all. They're laughing their butts off about it. They consider it a sign of weakness that this went through. In their country they sure as hell wouldn't do it.
Exactly. Moreover, where in the Constitution does it say that government has a "compelling interest" in promoting "diversity" through any form of racial preferences? The Constitution I know has no such provision. In fact, it has an express prohibition against inequality under the law on the ground of a person's race, i.e. it expressly prohibits government-instituted racism in any form regardless of the reason.
It doesn't. They made it up out of whole cloth. It's another example of judges deciding that they have the right to create laws, because after all, they went to law school, right? And that puts them above the rest of us. < /sarcasm >...
I don't think he switched. I was referring to what any GWB nominee will be subjected to.
Think Estrada.
Now your stuck with Bush's 10% rule AND institutionalized discrimination against Americans.
Keep voting for them Real Republicans in Texas. Pretty soon your kids will be chattering away in Spanish and Sam Houston will be depicted as an Evil White Racist and Santa Anna will be a Noble Victim.
we did it here in Washington STate and you Texans can do it too!
This is a state matter and the SC decision (or lack of one ) did not say you had to have affirmative action, it only said you could have it....
now you Texans....get busy....
we conservatives may be a minority but a solid one if each of us would just get out there and vote !
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