Blend It, Don't End It: A Report for Affirmative Action

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (June 24, 2004) – A new report documents the

continuing lack of racial and ethnic diversity at Texas A&M, the University of Texas at Austin, and

within Texas law and medical schools, despite many energetic efforts to try race-neutral

alternatives.

EXCERPTS:

(1) We also conclude that the Ten Percent

Plan is “good but not good
enough” regarding racial/ethnic diversity because the percentage of Black

and
Latino graduates from the most competitive high schools in Texas are less likely
to enroll in

selective public universities in Texas than they were prior to Hopwood….. (2) Another policy reason

for moving beyond sole reliance on test scores and
grade-point averages is the need to evaluate

students’ promise within the context
of their opportunities, rather than cementing structural

inequalities in K-12
education. For example, across all Texas high schools, 21.6% of Whites

are
enrolled in AP courses, compared to only 11.4% of African Americans and 12.4%
of Latinos.

While the Edgewood litigation and the subsequent school finance
legislation played a major role in

making public school funding in Texas more
equitable, as it stands there is still a legally

permissible gap between the
funding per student in low-wealth and high-wealth school districts. [pdf

55]

(3) “Texas is deeply segregated, regionally and neighborhood-by-neighborhood in its

major cities, so
the majority of our high schools are almost entirely white or black or brown. This

law is colorblind,
but it used our bitter history of segregation to promote diversity.”–David

Montejano [pdf 55, note 230]

(4) While the diversity rationale is the focus of this

policy report, the Supreme
Court also recognizes that remedying the present effects of past

discrimination
can be a compelling interest for public entities to justify race-

conscious
affirmative action. In order for a university to institute affirmative action
based on

a remedial justification, it must establish that it has a “strong basis in
evidence for its

conclusion that remedial action was necessary.” [pdf 61]

By mopress