Texas Affirmative Action Ban: Study Finds Hispanics Are More Underrepresented In Texas Universities

Huffington Post
Latino Voices
Posted: 04/12/2012 1:36 pm Updated: 04/12/2012 5:35 pm

Changes to college admission policy in Texas may be leaving some out - namely Hispanics, according to a study conducted by Princeton researchers Dr. Angel Harris and Dr. Maria Tienda.

Under Texas's new Top 10 Percent program, public universities must enroll students based on their performance in comparison to their high school classmates, rather than with all applicants. The new policy ensures that high school students at the top of their class are admitted, with aims to enroll more students from "poor communities."

But some argue that this policy is not as effective as the prior affirmative action at selecting a racially and ethnically diverse student body.

Full Story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/12/after-policy-change-study_n_1420596.html

Affirmative action opponents petition Supreme Court to review UT case

American Independent
09.20.11 5:32 pm

The University of Texas is once again embroiled in a possible Supreme Court case involving affirmative action in their admissions process. As the Austin American-Statesman reported, lawyers have filed a petition on behalf of a student who’d applied to the school, asking for the Supreme Court to review the UT’s consideration of race in undergraduate admission decisions.
“If any state action should respect racial equality, it is university admission. Selecting those who will benefit from the limited places available at state universities has enormous consequences for their futures and the perceived fairness of governmental action,” lawyers argue in the petition to the Supreme Court.

Full Story: http://www.americanindependent.com/194958/supreme-court-petitioned-to-review-ut-affirmative-action-case

5TH CIRCUIT DECLINES EN BANC REVIEW OF FISHER V. UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS

OFCCP Blog Spot
by Art Gutman Ph.D., Professor, Florida Institute of Technology
Tuesday, July 12, 2011

On August 17, 2009, Judge Sam Sparks of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas granted summary judgment to the University of Texas (UT) at Austin in a lawsuit by two white applicants claiming, via the 14th Amendment, that they were unfairly denied admission on the basis of race [556 F. Supp. 2d 603]. Citing the Supreme Court’s rulings in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and Parents v. Seattle School District (2007), Judge Sparks ruled that UT had a compelling government interest in achieving diversity in their undergraduate programs, UT exhausted race-neutral methods in failed attempts to achieve diversity, and therefore, UT’s race-conscious plan was narrowly tailored toward the goal of achieving diversity.

Full Story:
http://ofccp.blogspot.com/2011/07/5th-circuit-declines-en-banc-review-of.html

Appeals court hears arguments on UT’s use of race in admissions

statesman.com
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz Tuesday, August 3, 2010, 11:46 AM

NEW ORLEANS — Three federal appeals court judges gave no clear signal today of how they might rule in a case challenging the University of Texas’ consideration of race and ethnicity in undergraduate admissions.
The judges, with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, heard oral arguments in New Orleans by lawyers defending UT’s practice and a lawyer contesting it on behalf of two white students who were denied admission.
The three-judge panel is not expected to rule for several months. UT’s policy was upheld last year at the trial court level by Judge Sam Sparks of Austin.
“I thought the court was very well-informed on the case,” said UT President William Powers Jr., who attended the proceeding. “We stand by our case. We’ve got a good program.”

Full Story: http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/highereducation/entries/2010/08/03/appeals_court_hears_arguments.html

Affirmative Action Suit Challenges UT Admission Policy

The Texas Tribune
by Morgan Smith July 21, 2010

If two young women have their way, the University of Texas may soon rival the University of Michigan as the nation's top breeding ground for affirmative action jurisprudence.
Abigail Fisher and her co-plaintiff, Rachel Michalewicz, are the faces of a movement to overturn a landmark 2003 U.S. Supreme Court opinion allowing the use of race in the admissions process at the Michigan Law School. Their chosen target is UT, which denied them both admission in 2008. They believe that happened because they're white.
On Aug. 3, the federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in their lawsuit, which has attracted widespread attention from the legal community, including an amicus brief from the Obama administration in support of the university’s position. The case threatens to reinvigorate an ideological skirmish that reached its peak in the late 1990s.
Fisher and Michalewicz’s challenge to the use of race is the first in an undergraduate setting since the high court handed down Grutter v. Bollinger and its companion case, Gratz v. Bollinger — a pair of decisions that articulated how schools could use race-based affirmative action to select their incoming classes. The current plaintiffs lost in district court, in a 2009 ruling that affirmed the university’s policies were within constitutional bounds set forth in Grutter, which allows schools to use race as factor in the holistic consideration of candidates. (Explore annotated versions of both sides' appellate briefs and the district court's opinion here.)

Full Story: http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/higher-education/affirmative-action-suit-challenges-ut-policy/

Half-century later, UT to reconsider naming of dorm for Klansman

statesman.com
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz
AMERICAN-STATEMAN STAFF
Updated: 1:31 a.m. Thursday, May 20, 2010
Published: 9:22 p.m. Wednesday, May 19, 2010

William Stewart Simkins organized KKK in Florida before becoming a law professor in Texas

Simkins Residence Hall is the last all-male dormitory at the University of Texas. Tucked into a quiet corner of campus along Waller Creek, it was the first men's dorm with air conditioning.
It is notable for another reason as well: Simkins is named for a UT law professor who was a leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
William Stewart Simkins, who taught at the School of Law for 30 years until his death in 1929, organized the Klan in Florida after the Civil War along with his brother, Eldred, who later became a member of the UT System Board of Regents.

Full Story: http://www.statesman.com/news/local/half-century-later-ut-to-reconsider-naming-of-698255.html

Higher-Education Groups Back U. of Texas in Affirmative Action Case

The Chronicle of Higher Education
March 15, 2010

Fourteen national higher-education associations have filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to uphold the use of race-conscious admission policies by the University of Texas at Austin. A lawsuit challenging the university's decision to go back to considering race after several years without doing so argues that the university had achieved sufficient diversity in its enrollments through other, race-neutral means, such as a state law guaranteeing admission to students in the top 10th of their high-school class. The associations' brief argues that Supreme Court precedents concerning academic freedom give colleges a First Amendment.

Full Story: http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Higher-Education-Groups-Back/21830/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

For a copy of the ACE, et al. amicus brief, go to: http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Legal_Issues_and_Policy_Briefs2&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=35880

10% Admissions -- the Full Impact

Inside Higher Ed
April 6, 2009

Texas legislators may be on the verge of changing one of the most notable admissions experiments in recent years: a state law requiring that all public colleges and universities automatically admit all of those who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school classes.
The focus of lawmakers -- particularly those advocating a change -- has been the difficulty the law places on the University of Texas at Austin. As the most competitive institution in the state, it is highly attractive to anyone eligible to earn admission, and UT leaders say that they are filling such a large share of admissions slots through the so-called 10 percent program that they have lost flexibility and, with it, the ability to admit highly talented students who don’t earn automatic admission. Defenders of the law tend to focus on its impact increasing minority enrollments.
Two new studies suggest both positive and negative impacts of the law that have received relatively less attention in the debate. The studies are scheduled to be released next Friday at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.
One focuses on the high schools that send students to UT -- and finds that the law has led to much broader representation, effectively halting what had been a growing pattern in which a small number of wealthy high schools were increasingly dominating admissions. Not only has the overall number of high schools sending students to Austin increased since the 10 percent program, but the law appears to have shifted high school students’ decisions. At many high schools before the law took effect, those who would have almost certainly been admitted never bothered to apply -- and the law appears to have changed that, the research has found.
A second study could be used to argue against the 10 percent law -- or at least the way it has been carried out at UT-Austin. This study finds that, as the 10 percent law made it more difficult for some applicants to win admission, an increasing number of these rejected applicants used a program allowing transfer from other UT campuses. And as these transfers grew, transfers from community colleges fell. The finding is significant because so many low-income and minority students start their higher education at two-year institutions.

Full Story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/06/texas

Judge Refuses to Force U. of Texas to Reconsider 2 Rejected White Applicants

Chronicle of Higher Education
May 29, 2008
Peter Schmidt

A federal judge has refused to order the University of Texas at Austin to re-evaluate, without any consideration of race or ethnicity, the applications of two white students who have sued the institution, challenging its admissions policies as discriminatory. The lawsuit is continuing.
In a ruling issued late today, Judge Sam Sparks of the U.S. District Court in Austin said the lawyers for the two applicants had failed to show that there was a substantial likelihood the students would have been admitted had the university not considered some applicants’ race. The judge also said the lawyers had failed to show that the students would be irreparably harmed if their applications were not re-evaluated in a race-neutral manner while their lawsuit was pending.
The judge said he did not yet have reason to believe there was a strong likelihood the plaintiffs would prevail because the case had not progressed far enough for him to pass judgment on the university’s assertions that it needed to give some consideration to race and ethnicity to enroll a “critical mass” of black and Hispanic students. He said he did not think the potential harm to the two students justified the burden that would be placed on the university if he issued a preliminary order, possibly opening the door for hundreds or thousands of other students to appeal recent admissions decisions. [To read the entire article, go to: http://chronicle.com/news/article/4578/judge-refuses-to-force-u-of-texas-to-reconsider-2-rejected-white-applicants ] Subscription required

Complaint by New Right Wing Group Filed Against University of Texas With U.S. Department of Education Over Admissions Policy

The Project on Fair Representation (POFR) announced the filing of a complaint against the
University of Texas at Austin with the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S.
Department of Education. POFR asserts UT-Austin violated the law when race
and ethnicity were reintroduced in the undergraduate admissions process.
Edward Blum, director of POFR, said "UT's recent reintroduction of
racial preferences in undergraduate admissions is illegal, to say nothing
of being unfair and polarizing. The U.S. Department of Education needs to
end this practice before the next round of freshman applications is
submitted."...

The mission of the Project on Fair Representation (POFR) is to facilitate pro bono legal representation to political subdivisions and individuals that wish to challenge government distinctions and preferences made on the basis of race and ethnicity.

[For a copy of the complete news release and letter to the Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education, go to:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-23-2007/0004630597&EDATE=]