WSJ: Texas's 'Race-Neutral' Plan May Be Facing an Overhaul

Texas's 'Race-Neutral' Plan May Be Facing an Overhaul

By ROBERT TOMSHO
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


As the Supreme Court nears an important decision on the legality of
affirmative-action preferences in college admission, the Bush administration
is extolling "race neutral" plans as an alternative for promoting diversity.

But the version of that idea that was launched while Mr. Bush was governor
of the Lone Star State hasn't worked out exactly as planned, and it may be
headed for an overhaul amid a rising chorus of criticism. Because the Texas
program is the biggest of its kind, any changes in the program could have an
impact on how many other states are willing to adopt such diversity
strategies and what form they would take.

Under the current Texas plan, state residents who graduate in the top 10% of
their high-school class can be automatically admitted to any state
university, including the flagship University of Texas at Austin. With the
help of targeted recruiting and financial aid, the plan aims to open up
educational opportunities to more students from low-income and poorly
performing schools, regardless of their race.

The plan, which was conceived by some backers of affirmative action and
signed into law by Mr. Bush in 1997, was sparked by a 1996 federal appeals
court ruling that barred public universities in Texas, Mississippi and
Louisiana from using racial preferences to increase minority enrollment. And
it has helped to maintain a level of diversity at campuses such as
UT-Austin, the state system's largest and most prestigious campus. There,
Hispanics will make up 16.6% of this fall's freshman class, up two
percentage points from the year before the federal appeals court decision.
The proportion of African-Americans will be down only slightly, at 3.9%.

In its recent brief to the Supreme Court opposing the University of
Michigan's affirmative-action program, the Justice Department held out the
Texas program as a model for other states to follow, declaring it had
"enhanced opportunity and promoted educational diversity by any measure."
Already, the plan has inspired similar efforts in Florida and California.

But critics maintain that it is far too soon to draw conclusions about the
broader effectiveness of percent plans as a diversity tool. None has yet
boosted enrollment of minorities to a level approaching their proportion in
the overall college-age population. In Texas, for instance, Hispanics and
African-Americans accounted for about 52% of all 15- to 19-year-olds in
2000, according to a recent Harvard University study, but only about 35% of
the freshmen admitted to the state university system.

The three programs in place also vary dramatically in scope. Florida's
Talented 20 program guarantees students in the top 20% of their graduating
class admission to the state university system, but not to their school of
choice. Florida also permits universities to continue using race as a
consideration in recruiting and financial aid. California, meanwhile,
restricts its automatic admissions program to the top 4% of high-school
graduates. Students must also achieve minimum grades in required high-school
courses and compete with others for admission to more selective
universities, such as the University of California at Berkeley.

Meanwhile, the Texas plan, which has had the broadest impact, has stirred up
equity concerns of its own. The top-10 plan makes no distinction between
high-school curriculums, so students who take the bare minimum to graduate
are ranked the same as those who enroll in more challenging honors and
advanced-placement courses. Indeed, some parents acknowledge that, to boost
class rank, they have steered their children away from tough courses.

At the same time, so-called 10 percenters have filled a growing number of
the available spaces. At UT-Austin, they will account for 69% of this fall's
freshman class, up from 40% during the program's first year. University
officials have put special caps in place to prevent 10 percenters from
taking up all available openings in the business and communications schools.
"There are some really, really good students who don't make it" because they
aren't 10 percenters, says Bruce Walker, UT's admissions director.

Those students include 18-year-old Charlie Craig. At St. John's School, an
elite private school in Houston, Mr. Craig maintained a B average while
taking advanced-placement courses that earned him nearly a year of college
credit. The son of UT alumni, he also scored a total of 1370 on the SAT I
math and verbal tests, about 140 points above the average UT freshman. But
St. John's, like many private schools, doesn't rank its students
academically, so Mr. Craig couldn't be considered for automatic admission.
In a letter responding to his application, UT-Austin said it wouldn't accept
him until he spent a year at one of the university system's less-prestigious
branch campuses. "I just threw it away," says Mr. Craig of the letter.
Instead, he will attend the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Such rejections have led to protests, particularly in affluent and largely
white suburbs where students once had little trouble getting into UT-Austin.
"It has hurt some kids who are more qualified than the ones getting in,"
says John Oberman, of Alamo Heights, near San Antonio, whose daughter got an
academic scholarship to attend Southern Methodist University but was turned
down by UT-Austin.

The protests have led state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, a Republican from San
Antonio, to propose a law restricting automatic admission to students who
complete a college-prep curriculum recommended by the state.

A filibuster prevented a vote on the bill before the legislative session
ended. Still, the debate is far from over. Leaders in both houses of the
Republican-controlled legislature say it may be time to put tougher limits
on the top-10 plan.

"We still think this is a very important program," says state Sen. Florence
Shapiro, a veteran lawmaker from suburban Dallas. "At some point, though,
there ought to be room for other students."

Copyright 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

> Such rejections have led to protests, particularly in affluent and largely
> white suburbs where students once had little trouble getting into UT-Austin.
> "It has hurt some kids who are more qualified than the ones getting in,"
> says John Oberman, of Alamo Heights, near San Antonio, whose daughter got an
> academic scholarship to attend Southern Methodist University but was turned
> down by UT-Austin.
>
> The protests have led state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, a Republican from San
> Antonio, to propose a law restricting automatic admission to students who
> complete a college-prep curriculum recommended by the state.
>
> A filibuster prevented a vote on the bill before the legislative session
> ended. Still, the debate is far from over. Leaders in both houses of the
> Republican-controlled legislature say it may be time to put tougher limits
> on the top-10 plan.


Actually, there was little controversy about the college-prep curriculum
in the propsed reforms. The bill enjoyed smooth sailing through the
Lege until, late in the game, an attempt to ammend the bill caused the
filibuster.

The ammendment provided for automatic top 10% admission to be limited to
60% of the entering freshman classes at UT-Austin and Texas A&M-College
Station. The remaining 40% of spaces would be at the institutions'
discretion, presumably to accommodate the current protests from parents
and officials of elite private schools.

--/<eith