New Twists Mark the Debate over Texas' Top 10-Percent Plan

Autor/in	Schmidt, Peter
Titel	New Twists Mark the Debate over Texas' Top 10-Percent Plan
Quelle	In: Chronicle of Higher Education, 54 (2008) 39, (1 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0009-5982
Schlagwörter	Class Rank; Public Colleges; Courts; Affirmative Action; State Legislation; Educational Policy; College Admission; Court Litigation; Racial Composition; High School Students; College Bound Students; Student Diversity; Hispanic American Students; African American Students; Texas + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Court; Gerichtshof; Landesrecht; Politics of education; Bildungspolitik; Hochschulzugang; Hochschulzulassung; Zulassung; Rechtsstreit; High school; High schools; Student; Students; Oberschule; Schüler; Schülerin; Studentin; Hispanic; Hispanic Americans; Hispanoamerikaner; African Americans; Afroamerikaner
Abstract	Born out of one legal battle over affirmative action, the Texas college-admissions policy known as the "top 10 percent plan" is now at the center of another. The University of Texas at Austin is being challenged in U.S. District Court over its 2004 decision to return to using race-conscious admissions criteria after years without them. The outcome of the case may hinge on this question: Did Texas lawmakers come up with a workable alternative to such policies when they adopted a measure that required public colleges there to admit any young state resident in the top 10th of his or her high-school class? The court's ruling could have implications for the University of California and for Florida's public university system, which followed Texas' lead in adopting class-rank-based admissions guarantees, and may further complicate colleges' efforts to promote diversity. In briefs submitted to the court, lawyers for two white students rejected by the university are arguing that the 10-percent law has proven so effective in diversifying campuses that the institution has no need--and thus no legal justification--for using race-conscious admissions. Should the court accept their argument, it could set a precedent whereby the development of effective alternatives to race-conscious admissions policies undercuts the defense of such policies in the courts. Those colleges that have had to make do without race-conscious admissions policies as a result of ballot measures, court decisions, or some act of government may find it harder to go back to using them. The lawyers for the University of Texas, for their part, dispute the assertion that having the 10-percent plan precludes their consideration of race and argue that the policy is deeply flawed because it leaves their institution having to fill too many freshman seats based solely on applicants' high-school class rank. (ERIC).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10