Race-Blind Admissions at the University of Texas-Austin - Article Example

Race-Blind Admissions at the University of Texas-Austin Abstract The policy of Race-blind admission at the University of Texas is the measure to meet the goals of diversity under the race-neutral affirmative action without going directly into conflict with the law and the constitution of the state. At the beginning, the policy was able to play significant role in increasing the enrollment of the non-white students. Even the performance of the Top Ten Percent Plan students was encouraging enough to win the legal mandate. It was claimed by the advocates of the policy that it was capable of establishing equal opportunity on the base of merit-conscious admission. Ultimately, the outcomes that the policy yielded through the passage of time tended to proved the policy to be deprivation of opportunity. The policy for the Race blind Admission taken by the authority of the University of Texas is a milestone and at the same time, an epoch making event in the US history of building a race blind nation that will stand unified at one platform. The admission policy is exemplary in the sense that it was proficient enough to meet both the legal guidelines of the court and the pressing requirements diversity that was usually maintained under the Affirmative Actions in the pre-Hopwood admission policies. Race-Blind Admissions at the University of Texas-Austin Introduction The issue of minority enrollment in the educational has been an issue of struggle for decades in the history of Texas. A number of measures has been adopted to increase the enrollment of the minority students and been changed to meet the ever-changing requirements of time. After a verdict of the Federal court in 1996, the Texas Authority was pushed to modify the race-conscious admission policies in order to retain the diversity at states collages and universities. Without directly focusing on the applicants’ ethnicity, the state lawmakers instituted Top Ten Percent Plan to ensure an automatic admission to any public universities in Texas. The plan that was enacted by the 75th Legislature served a two-folds purpose: to meet the requirements of diversity and to face the law of equal opportunity (Barr, 2005, p. 1). It is evident that the pre-Hopwood admission policy was outlawed on the ground that it goes against the US constitution. But the fact whether the policy adopted by the University Authority and the state legislators in the post Hopwood period was capable enough of bridging the hollering racial gaps existing in the US society may engender controversy. Very often, it is argued that the legal defeat of the Texas University authority can be viewed as the undaunted laceration of the rights of the minority, as the US socioeconomic context was not in a position that could allow the minority to compete with the White Supremacy. Rather the minority was no match for the White to win equal opportunity. As Linda Darling-Hammond (1998) asserts, “Educational experiences for minority students have continued to be… unequal… funded well below….schools serving…students of colour had significantly fewer resources than schools serving mostly white students” (p. 29). Then there is also the question of diversity that was one of the firm grounds for the pre-Hopwood admission policy of the educational diversity. Necessarily post Hopwood Admission policies of the Universities and other educational institutions were to face the dilemma: on one side it had to face the State Law and on the other side it had to meet the criteria of maintaining diversity under the race conscious affirmative actions. At the onset of the implementation of the Top Ten Percent Plan its outcomes were encouraging enough to draw trains of scholars advocating for the plan. At that time when George W. Bush signed the legislation in 1997, “he hailed it as a race-neutral way to diversify enrollment” (Fischer, 2005, p. A25). In a legal brief before the US Supreme Court, the Bush Government received the favor of the majority of the court to use race conscious polices in a limited ways in the admission into the educational institutions. But through the passage of time the unintended outcomes of the Top Ten Percent Plan mounted to such an extent that “No fewer than 12 bills have been introduced in the Legislature this year to repeal or amend the law” (Fischer, 2005, p. A25)., including the steps to restrict the admission or “to limit the benefit to the top 5 percent of high-school” (Fischer, 2005, p. A25).. A Brief Historical Review of the Admission Policies In Texas The history of State policy to promote diversity in educational system dates back to 1950 in the Sweatt v. Painter Decision. In 1954, the court ruled against the segregation of the minority group in the Brown v. Board of Education case. The decision of the court in this case was the first step to maintain diversity in the educational campuses. The legal restriction on the race-conscious affirmative action was first imposed by the rule of the court in the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 483 U.S. 265 and the quota system in admission rescinded. “The court, however, affirmed diversity as a justifiable goal in university admissions programs.” (Barr, 2005, p. 1) But to convene the pressing demand of circumstance Office of Civil Rights approved “Texas Equal Educational Opportunity Plan for Public Higher Education” in 1983. This admission scheme preserved 15 percent of the total enrollment for Mexican-American students and African-American students. The scheme has no legal mandate. The scheme proves it worth to increase the enrollment of the students with non-white origins until 1996 when it was challenged by Hopwood Cheryl and two other white students. The court ruled in favor of Hopwood and pushed the state legislators to implement plan without its race-consciousness. Eventually the “Top Ten Percent Law” happened to emerge with the 75th Legislature in 1997. Pre-Hopwood Admission Policy in the University of Texas The admission policies of the University of Texas Austin in the post-Hopwood period are to be comprehended in the context of the university’s pre-Hopwood policies. It is evident that the pre-Hopwood Admission policy of the University of Texas can be characterised as the race-conscious diversification policy that is engendered by the right of the universities to diversify the student body in the campuses. This right of diversification rested on the decision of the Supreme Court for the Bakke Case in 1978. In the same year Justice Powell explained the significance of diversity both in the educational institutions and the working places. With the majority opinion of the US Supreme Court Powel states that "the atmosphere of 'speculation, experiment and creation' - so essential to the quality of higher education - is widely believed to be promoted by a diverse student body" (University of California Regents v. Bakke, 1978, p. 265). Justice Powel draws a reference to the Keyishian v. Board of Regents case of the Supreme Court in 1967 and asserts that the “nation's future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to the ideas and mores of students as diverse as this Nation of many peoples" (Chapa, 2002, p. 379). The fact whether race-consciousness should play a significant in the maintenance of diversity is highly split. In a study, Black refers to the split through the following diagram: Source: Black, Jr., W. L. (2002) Besides this pressing issue of diversity that possesses the legal grounds on the decisions of the Supreme Court in 1978, the socio-economic context of the US society that inherited a legacy of the less-developed portion of discriminated minorities, pushed the Texas authority as well as the university administrators to prepare their policies in order to attain the goals of diversity through the means of race-conscious affirmative actions. An overall picture of the socioeconomic condition of the minorities is vivid in the following figure: Source: Black, Jr., W. L. (2002) As in an article, it is said that the policy prior to the Hopwood case “had been in place at the University of Texas since 1983, and had been designed to help Hispanic and African American students overcome biases in standardized tests” (Hopwood v. Texas, 2005). Since the 1970s the race conscious policies played a crucial role in the admission decisions of the university. The policies were practised at both the graduate and undergraduate the professional school level. The policy practised by the Admission committee of the university in the 1980s instituted three categories for the prospective students: a presumptive admit, discretionary, and presumptive denial category. The policy set a different cut off scores basing on the race diversification theory for the Mexican American and Black applicants that allowed them to be classified in the presumptively admitted categories with comparatively low scores. But Cheryl’s legal challenge to the authority of the admission committee won the favour of the 1996 Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and revoked the power of the university authority to consider race in the decision making of the university, arguing, Within the general principles of the Fourteenth Amendment, the use of race in admissions for diversity in higher education contradicts, rather than furthers, the aims of equal protection….. Such a criterion is no more rational on its own terms than would be choices based upon the physical size or blood type of applicants. (Hopwood) The decision of the court left the endeavor of the university authority to maintain student body diversity into struggle while following the guidelines of the law of the country. Consequently, the authority of the University was pushed to make a holistic review of the policies practiced in the freshman admission. The dilemma engendered by the conflict between the legal guidelines to obtain equal opportunity in the society and the pressing necessity of diversity in the student-body shapes further the admission policies taken in the post-Hopwood period. The Policy of Top Ten Percent Plan (TTPP) in Texas Post-Hopwood race-neutral admission policies significantly appear to be the bypass result of the pre-Hopwood race-conscious affirmative actions to maintain diversity in the student-body in an educational campus. The ideology behind the policy was to avoid the restrictions of law in order to maintain diversity that is so valued in the socioeconomic context of the US society. The policy changed into “broadening the factors used to make admission decisions to include subjective criteria e.g., essays, awards and honors, service, work experience and special circumstances that put an applicant’s achievements into context” (University of Texas at Austin, 2005, p. 30). To meet the both ends of the interest of diversity of the pre-Hopwood admission policies and the guidelines of law an automatic admission for the top ten percent of the students graduating in the high schools was proposed by a group of advocates and state legislators. In the 1990s both the events of SP-1 and Proposition 209 (California) and the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Hopwood v. Texas are to be considered as the milestones in the history of the USA’s race conscious affirmative actions. The decade drew an end to the race-conscious affirmative actions in the admission policies of the University of Texas as well as other educational institutions of the state. The post-Hopwood race neutral admission policies had both intended and unintended impact on the enrolment of the students of different ethnic background. At the University of California the enrolment of the African American students and other students of different ethnic backgrounds shrank abruptly at that time. As Chapa and Horn notes, the “race-neutral” policies, practices, and results of those adopted by these states have been mixed. The number of African American and Latino students at the University of California (UC) dropped precipitously and now, a decade later, is still below 1995 levels” (Chapa & Horn, 2007, p. 159). But the post-Hopwood contest had been different than that of California. Texas authority adopted the Top Ten Percent Plan to keep the enrolment rate in tact. Rather the enrolment rate gracefully increased. “The University…now has more minority students than ever. In addition to increasing the number of Black…TTPP has increased the geographic diversity of UT undergraduates.” (Chapa & Horn, 2007, p. 159) In many cases, the plan was effective to increase the enrollment of the students with different ethnic backgrounds. In the first place, the plan served as an effective substitute of the pre-Hopwood admission policies and was capable of meeting the demands of the diversity and the guidelines of the laws. According to the United States Department of Education the Top Ten Percent Plan was one of the “innovative ‘race-neutral’ programs being implemented across the country” (United States Department of Education, 2003, p. iv). Though the Top Ten Percent Policies was not intended to be the direct substitute of the pre-Hopwood admission policies, the outcomes proved it to be an effective substitute. It was also a surprise for the creators and legislators of the plan, as they commented, “We do not believe that the Ten Percent Plan will reverse the losses that the elimination of affirmative action occasioned or become the alternative that the President and others believe it has become” (Brief of the Authors of the Texas Ten Percent Plan, 2003, p. 3). Automatic Admission Policies and Segregated High Schools About the creation of the Top Ten Percent Plan in the segregated context, La Giraffe Du Lion (1999) comments, “A resourceful legislature, observing that school districts are de facto segregated, passed a law guaranteeing to the top 10 percent of every high school graduating class admission to any public college or university in the state” (Color of Meritocracy). In the sociopolitical context of the US society as well as of Texas, school segregation had been a long problem and created a great obstacle in the way of achieving equality based educational opportunities in the educational institutions. According to the scholars, segregation of the schools had a direct connection with the limited learning opportunities that had its root within the ethnic isolation of the African American and Latino students. In the sociopolitical context of Texas, direct poor and undesirable learning outcomes of school segregation had been vividly visible. As the negative impact of the correlation between segregation and the educational outcomes the achievement scores of the students of different ethnic origins had been poor in the standardized test at all grade levels. Due to the segregation, the dropout rate of the ethnic students grew. Among other consequences of the segregation, the number of the preparatory courses declined and the percentage of the participation of the students in the admission tests shrinks largely. The segregation of schools contributed a lot to the low participation of the African American and Latinos in higher education (Orfield & Lee, 2005; Orfield & Yun, 1999). As Jeannie Oakes of UCLA notes “African American and Latino students were much less likely than White or Asian students with the same test scores to be placed in accelerated courses”, (Oakes quoted in Gordon, Piana, & Keleher, 2000). The most part of the weight of the Top Ten Percent Plan lies in the discriminatorily and at the same time, circumstantial variability of opportunities in the public schools. Necessarily this variability of opportunity in the school levels tended to justify the post-Hopwood admission policies in the context of resources to the students. It is ironical; though the Hopwood case was against the race-conscious admission policies of the authority of the University of Texas Austin, the post-Hopwood Top 10 Percent Plan was, largely, the reversal of the Hopwood verdict, having the ability to meet both the legal guidelines and the interests of diversity in the student-body in the campuses of the educational institutions. The plan proved its affordability to make the reinstatement of the policies of the affirmative actions along with the universities’ interest in maintaining diversity in the campus. The evaluation of the plan is illustrated effectively in the following words of Chapa and Horn (2007), “Having been held out nationally as implementing an effective state-level “race-neutral” admission policy …Texas represents a key state in which to explore admission decision making and the goal of racial/ethnic diversity on college campuses” (p. 161). However, the verdict of the Court in the Hopwood case was against the race-conscious admission policies, the post-Hopwood admission policies serve as the bypass of the policies. In some cases, the outcomes of the policies are so encouraging that they are often mistaken in the regard to revealing themselves as the positive impacts of the race-blind affirmative actions. But soon the application of the Texas Admission policies brought about a flux of aftermaths that were not intended, at all, by its creators and in many cases, they went against the spirit of equal opportunity. Percent Plan Admissions and the Outcomes In a study, Chapa and Horn (2007) shows that the Top 10 Percent Plan was more effective in the context of the educational institutions than the race-conscious affirmative policies of pre-Hopwood period. Meritocracy revealed itself in its own color. From 1998 to 2004, an analysis of the number and ethnicity of the students who were admitted under this plan significantly revealed that the number of the white students who enjoyed the offers of the Top 10 Percent Plan declined from 66% to 58% of the total number. The enrollment of the Black students remained intact at 7%. However, from 1998 to 2004 the percent of the enrollment of the Asian students rose for 1 to 10 (percent). The major gain for the enrollment of the non-white students was the in the enrollment of the Hispanic students that rose from 18% to 22% throughout these 6 years (Chapa & Horn, 2007, pp. 161-165). The whole picture can be viewed in the following figure: Source: Chapa & Horn, 2007 At the University of Texas, the proportions of the enrollment of the students were slightly lower than the proportional enrollment of the students of different ethnicity of the whole state. All but the Asian students had almost the same ratio of enrollment under the Top 10 Percent Plan. In the total enrolment of the students at the University of Texas, the Asian students had a greater share of about 20 percent. Source: Chapa & Horn, 2007 Encouraging TTPP Student Performance The performance of those students who were admitted under the Top 10 Percent Plan was rather encouraging. They had better grades than the non-TTPP students did. On an average, TTPP students had a higher rate of graduation. A research that was led on the comparison between the TTPP students and the non-TTPP students shows that the TTPP students are more competitive than the non-TTPP students are (Walker, 2000; Gary Hansen, personal communication). As Bruce remarks, “Because the Ten Percenters were better prepared, the Austin campus has been able to scale back remedial courses and increase honors sections” (Interview with Bruce Walker, 2003, quoted in Chapa & Horn, 2007). Here one thing is remarkable that the success of the Top 10 Percent Plan to increase does not lie in the enactment of HB 588. According to Chapa and Horn (2007), the success necessarily lies in the “vigorous recruitment and targeted need-based scholarships” (p. 164). Scholars note that the TTPP plan has a lot to do with the inspirational impact on the minority, but with the concrete influence. Tienda et al note that Knowledge about the Top 10 Percent Plan has a positive impact upon the inspiration of the students to enroll in the four-year institutions. It is asserted that the minority students were greatly inspired by the contagion effect of the law that contributed to focusing their mind “on meeting the requirements for college” (Tienda, Cortes, & Niu, 2003). “Students who knew a lot about TTPP were more than five times as likely to enroll in a four-year institution as the comparable student who did not know about the law” (Tienda, Cortes, & Niu, 2003, quoted in Chapa and Horn, 2007). As Edward Blum expresses his experience of the plan, These enrollment figures at UT are welcome news that apparently come as a surprise to the traditional civil rights advocacy groups who claimed the Hopwood decision was going to permanently re-segregate our institutions of higher education. (Giraffe, Color of Meritocracy, 1999) Depending on the analysis of the enrollment of the students in the Fall 1997 (figure 1) Giraffe comments that “the enrollment statistics are in excellent agreement with our predictions for merit-based admissions” (Color of Meritocracy, 1999). According to the institution, though the admission was totally unbiased and merit based, the enrollment of the ethnic students was no otherwise of the predicted outcome; rather the result was more than expectation. 1997 Post-Hopwood University of Texas Law School Admissions Data Applied Offered  Admission Offers Predicted by Merit White 2515 907 909 Black 225 11 13 Mexican American 306 40 36 "Others" (372) 134 134 Percent of applicants offered admission White 36.1 % 36.1 % Black 4.9 % 5.9 % Mexican American 13.1 % 11.6 % "Others" 36.0 % 36.1 % Table 3.  Acceptance rate by ethnicity: actual and by merit. Predicted offers have been rounded to the nearest integer. Source: Color of Meritocracy, 1999 The Unintended Outcomes of the TTPP In spite of the encouraging performance of the TTPP students, some studies attempt to show the negative aspects of the “Top Ten Percent Plan”. In the 2001 school year 12.4 percent of students who were considered to be qualified under the under the Top Ten percent plan opt for minimum level curriculum. SAT scores abruptly shrank among TTPP students at the University of Texas Austin. Admission data of the University shows that “the average SAT score among top-10-percent students has dropped from 1253 in 1996, before the enactment of the law, to 1223 in 2003” (Barr, 2005, p. 2). However, SAT score in an average increased among the non-TTPP students from 1197 to 1257. Though primarily the outcomes of the policy were encouraging, it yielded some impacts that were unintended. The main features of the unintended outcomes are as following: 1. At the first place, it unfairly denied the access of those students who were more qualified than the top ten percent students of less advantaged minority schools. However, it was assumed that the policy would ensure merit-based equal opportunity. 2. In cases, the universities became confronted with the question whom to admit if the applicants under the plan outnumbers the vacant seats. In such cases whether the race would be considered to maintain diversity, consideration of the educational achievements of applicants is more uncertain to maintain diversity. 3. In many cases the plan forced those students who were denied the admission to the flagship universities even being the more qualified than many of the top ten percent students (just because of reason that they are not the students of a less advantaged rural school) to go for admission to the universities outside the state. (Barr, 2005, pp. 2-3) Grutter Twist on the Negative Outcomes of Top 10 Percent Plan The Top 10 Percent Plan received a new but unexpected twist in the Post-Gutter period. A unique situation confronted the authority of the University of Texas in the implementation of the revised procedure of the automatic admission. The authority was concerned about the boundaries that the automatic admission plan of the Top 10 percent imposed on the process. However, their proposition was not directly against the plan, rather they suggested a massive amendment of it (Grissom, 2005a). In a debate over the issue Texas State legislatures committee proposed to amend the law in order to cap the number of students admitted under the automatic admission process. It was suggested, “Only half of the freshman class be comprised of 10 percent plan qualifiers” (Grissom, 2005). There were various suggestions made by different people at the helm of the state. In this regard, Senator Royce suggested that the offer of the automatic admission should be limited to only those students of advanced high school programs and or those whose would complete the state’s recommendations (Grissom, 2005). The debate over the issue is portrayed in the following lines, “In contrast, some critics simply wanted the plan rescinded altogether…. Advocates from districts with large minority populations and from rural areas joined together, keeping the TTPP in place as originally written.” (Chapa & Horn, 2005, p. 163) Critical Appreciation of the Texas Top Ten Percent Plan Throughout the passage of time, the spirit that the founders of the US society pumped into the heart of the nation has had to travel a long way to reach the Race blind policy at the University of Texas. But it is also obvious that the entirety of the UT race blind admission policy is ironically paradoxical in its outcomes. The more the unintended outcomes of the Texas Top 10 Percent Plan began to be visible, the more the ironies lying within the plan became evident. Those who believed that the plan has played a significant role in instituting “the same educational opportunity regardless of race or ethnicity” as Blum believed, were unable to observe the fact that the policy is the race-conscious affirmative action under the disguise of meritocracy allowing the opportunity for the top ten percent meritorious from less funded minority schools. The encouraging high retention and performance of the TTPP students do not necessarily prove that the protocol of equal opportunity was fully established through the post-Hopwood admission policy because the unintended outcomes of the plan are ample enough to prove fairly the fact that “To oppose racism one must notice race.” Omi & Winant (1994, p. 158). It is true that the policies preserved the right only for the top ten percent of which the main beneficiaries are the students from the less developed minority school. In this sense the Top Ten Percent Plan, though it is claimed to be race-neutral, was designed to preserve the rights of the less developed minorities. So it is no more race-neutral and no more based on equal opportunities, as it itself violates the law equality by preserving preference for a targeted group. But if one considers the figure of Black, one will be convinced that the Top Ten Percent was targeted to mitigate the racial discrimination on economic grounds. The argument that poses here is: if the non-white students are economically disadvantaged, they have the rights to enjoy the facilities of the Top Ten Percent Plan. Conclusion Obviously, the policy for the Race blind Admission taken by the authority of the University of Texas (Austin) around 1997 is a milestone and at the same time, an epoch making event in the US history of building a race blind nation that will stand unified at one platform. The admission policy that the administrators of the University as well as the Texas authority took after the legal defeat in the Hopwood vs. Texas University case was exemplary in the sense that it was proficient enough to meet both the legal guidelines of the court and the pressing requirements diversity that was usually maintained under the Affirmative Actions in the pre-Hopwood admission policies. References Barr, R. (2005). Should Texas Change the Top 10 Percent Law? House Research Organization, 1-4. Retrieved March 11, 2009 from Black, Jr., W. L. (2002). The Federal Constitution and Race-Based Admissions Policies in Public Charter Schools. 172, Retrieved March 11, 2009 from Hopwood v. Texas-Further Readings. (2005, April). Brief of the Authors of the Texas Ten Percent Plan as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondents, Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) and Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003). Chapa, J. (2002). Affirmative action, X% plans and Latinos’ access to higher education. In M. Suarez Orozco & M. Paez (Eds.), Latinos remaking America (pp. 375-88). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Chapa, J. & Horn, L. C. (2007). Is Anything Race Neutral? Comparing “Race Neutral” Admission Policies At the University of Texas and the University of Calofornia. Charting the Future of College Affirmative Action: Legal Victories, Continuing Attacks, and New Research, The Civil Right Project. Ch 7, pp. 157-172 Darling-Hammond, L. (1998). Unequal opportunity: Race and education. The Brookings Review, 16(2), 28-32. Fischer, K. (2005, April 22). Class-Rank Plan Faces Trouble in Texas. Government & Politic, 51(33), p. A25 Gordon, R., Piana, L. D., & Keleher, T. (2000). Facing the consequences: An examination of racial discrimination in U. S. public schools. Oakland, CA: Applied Research Center. Grissom, B. (2005a, March 30). Lawmakers debate university admissions law. The Associated Press State & Local Wire. Grissom, B. (2005b, May 6). Tougher classes required under Senate’s top 10 percent bill. The Associated Press State & Local Wire. Retrieved on October 20, 2005, from http://web.lexis.nexis.com Hopwood v. State of Texas, 78 F.3d 932 (5th Cir. 1996). Orfield, G., & Lee, C. (2005). Why segregation matters: Poverty and educational inequality. Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University. Orfield, G., & Yun, J. T. (1999). Resegregation in American schools. Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University. The Color of Meritocracy. (1999, October). La Giraffe Du Lion, 1(2). The University of Texas at Austin. (2005). Implementation and results of the Texas automatic admissions law (HB 588) at the University of Texas at Austin. Tienda, M., Leicht, K., Sullivan, T., Maltese, M., & Lloyd, K. (2003). Closing the gap? Admissions & enrollments at the Texas public flagships before and after affirmative action. University of California Regents v. Bakke, (1978). 438 U.S. 265 University of California Office of the President. (2003a). Eligibility in the local context fact sheet. Oakland, CA: University of California Office of the President. U.S. Department of Education. (2003). Achieving diversity: Race-neutral alternatives in American education. Washington, DC: Office for Civil Rights. Walker, B. (2000). The implementation and results of HB 588 at the University of Texas at Austin (Report Number 2). Read More