It’s not clear that they did. A substantial number of minority applicants with grades and test scores better than plaintiff Abigail Fisher’s weren’t admitted. And a number of white students with grades and test scores worse than Fisher’s were admitted. This truly was holistic admissions, decided on an individual basis as required by previous Supreme Court decisions. It wasn’t simply a question of putting a thumb on the scale in favor of minority applicants. Fisher couldn’t show that “but for” the use of race in holistic admissions, she would have been admitted. There’s a very good chance that even without any consideration of race, she would have been denied.
No. The news media are calling it affirmative action. The University of Texas called it holistic admissions, as did the Supreme Court. And the Court was very careful not to say that “anything goes” in holistic admissions. If race is used as any factor at all, the school must state with particularity why achieving racial diversity is important to its educational mission, and it must narrowly tailor the use of race in its admissoins process to achieve those specific objectives. A majority of the Court concluded the University of Texas had met that burden. But that’s a warning to other schools that they need to re-examine their admissions policies because they could be subject to close judicial scrutiny on the same standard. On the other hand, Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion said: “Considerable deference is owed to a university in defining those intangible characteristics, like student body diversity, that are central to its identity and educational mission.” I would take this to mean that schools have a good deal of discretion in defining their diversity goals as part of their educational mission, and courts shouldn’t interfere too much in that realm beyond insisting that the goals be clearly articulated; but courts should be vigilant in ensuring that the means chosen are carefully tailored to achieve those specific educational goals, not broadly aimed at remedying social injustice or past race-based harms.
How? I thought Asian students liked stats based admission which describes auto admission to a T. Texas students can guarantee admission by achieving X% rank. Where students fail to meet the threshold rank then holistic review presents a second chance at admission. Holistic review for Texas residents is a very small percentage of admits so no one (minority or otherwise) should feel entitled to be admitted through this second bite at the apple.
UT still can’t attract enough URM to actually enroll because it remains unaffordable or the least affordable of many students’ options. Most college bound minority kids either have the stats to get into meet need schools or choose the full ride or full tuition at other colleges. Others can only afford to commute to a local school. The struggle is real - UT has a tough time finding URMs who can/will pay $24k annually to attend UT rather than apply that $24k toward EFC at a private school.
<<<
Since Texas does not have a system where initiatives or referendums can be put to direct vote by the entire state (as California does) it would require that the Texas Legislature initiate such a measure.
<<<
I suppose you are referring to a quota but the top X% rule specifically avoids quota and is attempting to serve the entire demographic of the state.
It’s interesting that the folks who sympathize with Fisher completely overlook the fact that Fisher was not any more qualified than the students she accused of taking her spot. Fisher basically had no injury because no one took her spot and the case should not have survived summary judgment much less get Supreme Court review.
The case was without merit but it sure had tenacious backers.
I never understood why Fisher and Blum thought they had a case. It was well-known when she started high school that you needed to be in the top 10% of your class to be admitted to UT. And there wasn’t anything making this snowflake special enough to get a discretionary admittance. But if it wasted Blum’s money to pursue this case, so much the better.
How? I thought Asian students liked stats based admission which describes auto admission to a T.
<<<<
The issue is the admittance beyond the auto-admit numbers (which isn’t really stats-based admission…see **). If I understand this correctly, the woman who sued was concerned that the sort-of “at large” admits (outside of auto-admits) were admitted based on race…effectively shutting her out or reducing her chances.
And, if so, then this will affect other states’ publics.
**State schools already heavily admit based on GPA and/or rank, rather than test scores or “stats” to give an admissions boost to those attending weaker schools (often low-income and/or URMs). For example: the 3.8 GPA ACT 25 student would be selected over the 3.6 ACT 32 student…or the Sal with the 3.8 GPA and ACT 22 would be admitted before the 3.8 top 12% with an ACT 32. So, not really “stats based”.
I’m fine with GPA-based admittance, but many Asian students/families are going to feel that AA policies in public univs is another kick in the teeth.
<<<
I never understood why Fisher and Blum thought they had a case. It was well-known when she started high school that you needed to be in the top 10% of your class to be admitted to UT. A
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
I don’t think you had to be in the top 10% to be admitted. Maybe I’m wrong, but likely at the time she was admitted, the rule was that top 10% was guaranteed admittance…and after that, the school admitted students as they saw fit or thru some other formula. Certainly there have always been students at UT that did not reach the 10% rank.
If UT only admitted top 10%, then there would be no AA issue, right? It would be totally race-blind…top 10% (or top 8% or some number now)?
Did UT reduce the auto-admit threshold from top 10% to top 7or 8% to give itself more room to implement AA?
Fantastic news for URM’s. Terrible news for Asians and whites, specially those competing for slots in impacted majors like Engineering, Business and Computer Science where all seats are subject to holistic admission not just 25 percent. There is no automatic admissions to these impacted majors even if you are in the top seven percent. UT has been using race as not just one insignificant or equal factor amongst many factors in its holistic admission, but often as a very significant factor to shape the profile of the classes in these majors and the rest of the twenty five percent in other majors.
UT can’t have it both ways. They can’t claim that it is one factor in many implying that it is not significant and therefore does not discriminate against Asians and Whites in any significant way but then also claim that without it they can’t get the diversity they need which implies that it actually helps shape racial demographics on campus significantly above and beyond what the top ten percent rule does. Which one is it?
And thats PRECISELY why UT was arguing that it needed racial preferences in the holistic round-- to get “diversity within diversity”. In Fisher 1, UT argued that it was concerned that while the percentage plan admitted a sizable number of URM students, it was getting largely poor URM students from de facto racially segregated schools. It wasn’t getting high income URMs, because the high income ones at the higher SES schools were not making it in under the percentage plan.
The holistic round gives UT a chance to give preference to rich URMs, to ensure “diversity within diversity”. UT jaw-droppingly stated in the Fisher 1 oral arguments (read it if you don’t believe me) that it also needed black kids who were the offspring of affluent lawyers, not just poor kids.
I was not trying to stereotype anyone but the argument against holistic admission generally assumes the kid with the better stats is more qualified and is therefore being discriminated against because someone with lower stats got in. Whether one agrees with this argument or not, the facts of this case are that Texas admission is largely stats driven. UT’s holistic admission uses stats as well as soft factors wherein diversity is one factor. To leap to the conclusion that a decision upholding this system is something Asians will not be happy about is well…quite a leap.
Fisher failed to make top 10% and then did not get in through the review process. She blames the consideration of race even in the face of facts showing that more whites than minorities were admitted with similar or lower stats. Her suit got her the hard numbers during discovery but she did not want facts to get in the way of an anti-affirmative action agenda. Anyone with enough means can pursue whatever agenda they want using the courts but the court has to decide the case based on the facts.
<<<
And thats PRECISELY why UT was arguing that it needed racial preferences in the holistic round-- to get “diversity within diversity”. In Fisher 1, UT argued that it was concerned that while the percentage plan admitted a sizable number of URM students, it was getting largely poor URM students from de facto racially segregated schools. It wasn’t getting high income URMs, because the high income ones at the higher SES schools were not making it in under the percentage plan.
<<<
So, this will effectively brand the higher SES URMs as token admits, and surely many will be rightly offended by that. This sort of thing causes people to call into question whether certain students were fairly admitted. Who wants that? Who wants to attend a school with others murmuring that AA got you in?
I also think that these things cause people to play fast and loose with ethnic identification (for example, Mindy Kaling’s brother who claimed to be black to gain med school admissions).
Top 7%/8% seems to be targeted to fill about three quarters of the frosh class at UT Austin; staying at top 10% would likely leave no space at all of non-auto-admit frosh. This would probably have students and parents at highly competitive high schools complaining that there is no way into UT Austin for them if they do not make the top 10% under fierce competition.
Why not stick to the facts of the Fisher case? The inconvenient truth is that whether the holistic admits were white, Hispanic, black, Asian or other, their stats were competitive with Fisher.
Folks like to comfort themselves that the only failed to get that coveted admission because a token URM took their spot. Why aren’t the holistic admit white kids with lower academic stats but better soft factors than Fisher offended to be “token” admits? But URMs should worry about whether others think they are deserving?
Almost nobody is against giving people a leg up based upon SES, because people recognize that a child from a high-income family has numerous advantages over someone that grew up in a poor family. That is true whether the beneficiary is white, Asian, black, etc. But that is completely different from giving someone an advantage because of they are the right shade of brown.
Interesting consequence of Fisher outcome is that opposers of Texas’ percentage plan are boldly lobbying that since UT has been given the green light to use racial preferences in its holistic admissions, it does not need to use the percentage plan to admit URMs.
We deal with that in every competitive environment we are in, whether its a college, a job, an internship. It is assumed many times that we only got it because of our skin color.
Murmuring? Some of my fellow PhD friends have been outright told by their undergrads that they were only admitted to U of M because they were (insert race or ethnicity or religion here).
I had undergrad friends that were told that, too, but I didn’t think it would extend as much to grad students who are “supposed” to be at least somewhat respected by undergrads (or hell, we have a significant- if not complete- say in their grade so I figured if nothing else they wouldn’t tick off the person who controls the grade).