Chapter 2

Beyond Percentage Plans: The Challenge of Equal Opportunity in Higher Education

When the Commission issued its April 2000 statement on percentage plans,[1] the University of California (UC) had had a ban on the use of race for determining first-time student admissions for almost two years. A percentage plan for admitting first-time students to the university had been in place for decades, but it had been accompanied by affirmative action programs intended to augment minority representation in the student body. The affirmative action programs were abandoned when the use of race was prohibited, and the university began seeking other means, including modifications to the percentage plan and increased outreach, to ensure diversity among students.

Civil rights advocates have urged state university systems to establish percentage plans only along with the continued use of affirmative action. The Commission’s statement in 2000 criticized UC admissions policies because declines in enrollment of black, Hispanic, and American Indian students, both undergraduates and first-time law students, had occurred following implementation of the race ban, particularly at the premiere Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses.[2] Other concerns about the University of California were that African American and Latino and Filipino American applicants were denied admission by the following: eligibility requirements for courses that were less accessible in the high schools these students attend; an undue and unjustified reliance on standardized test scores and judgments made based on educationally insignificant differences in tests scores; disparities in grade point averages that special considerations did not mitigate; and an unvalidated admissions process that did not adopt alternative criteria with less disparate impact on minority applicants.[3]

The section below explains UC’s various admissions policies and is followed by an analysis showing the dwindling numbers of Hispanic, African American, and Native American students in the UC system using applicant, admissions, and enrollment data from 1995 to the present. Enrollment data for the current 2002–2003 academic year were not available at the time this report was prepared.

The University of California consists of eight campuses—Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz—with a growing population of upward of 25,000 first-time students (see table 2.1).[4] Its admissions policies are established by a Board of Regents. Numerous policies have been in effect both before and since a ban on the use of race in admissions was imposed. Table 2.2 shows a timeline for when key decisions about admissions were made and the policies implemented.

As early as 1960, the UC Board of Regents and the California State Board of Education approved the California Master Plan for Higher Education. The plan established the principle of universal access and choice and established a three-tier system with the University of California as the state’s primary academic research institution providing undergraduate, graduate, and professional education. The plan identified college admissions pools for each tier. UC was designated the most selective. It was to admit California residents in the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates. Applicants who met the 12.5 percent requirement would be offered a place somewhere in the UC system, though not necessarily at the campus or in the major of first choice.[5]

The Master Plan broadly confines admissions, but allows the University of California campuses to vary criteria within constraints.[6] The UC system has 14 selection criteria, 10 of which are academic, such as standardized test scores, completion of college preparatory curricula, and minimum grade point averages. The other four selection criteria are supplemental, having to do with special talents, life experiences, and geographic diversity. Campus differences in the use of selection criteria account for whether or not applicants are admitted to their first choice among schools.[7] Furthermore, given the criteria and other constraints, only 11.1 percent of high school graduates statewide were eligible for admission in recent years, not the 12.5 percent the Master Plan stated as a goal.[8]

The California Master Plan for Higher Education has been reviewed numerous times over the decades and has undergone minor modifications in response to some of those reviews.[9] Ethnic, gender, and economic diversity issues were raised in reviews of the plan in the early 1970s and again in the late 1980s. The 1970s reviews sought to ensure access for all eligible students and to expand the use of “non-traditional” criteria for admitting larger proportions of the student body. UC was urged to approximate the general ethnic, gender, and economic composition of recent California high school graduates. This goal was reiterated again in a 1989 review with a directive that governing boards determine policies and programs that increase the access of underrepresented students to first-time admission and college successes. The need for innovative outreach programs was stressed.[10]

The state-imposed Master Plan, with its requirement for UC to admit the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates, remains in place today. A new Master Plan for Education, released September 9, 2002, maintains the 12.5 percent admissions policy.[11] What has changed about the plan over the decades is emphasis on affirmative action. This emphasis grew in the 1970s and 1980s, with the incorporation of outreach to minority students intended to increase enrollment of underrepresented groups, and was then abandoned after race bans were imposed in the late 1990s.[12] The UC system’s selection criteria appear to have changed in relatively minor ways over the years.[13] However, the 2002 Master Plan recommends placing less weight on honors and advanced placement courses and considering both objective and qualitative personal characteristics of applicants equally in the admissions process.[14

Concurrent with other admissions plans, UC has had a policy to admit a small proportion of students who did not meet the eligibility requirements but demonstrated reasonable potential for success. Enrolling students who are otherwise fully eligible and admissible but who have course deficiencies due to the unavailability of courses in their high schools has been a UC practice for more than a decade.[15] In July 1996, UC’s president articulated the policy, providing campuses explicit flexibility to admit a small proportion of students effective with the spring 1998 quarter: Up to 6 percent of newly enrolled freshmen could be admitted “by exception” at each campus. Up to 4 percent could be drawn from disadvantaged students, and up to 2 percent from other students. Disadvantaged students were defined as students from low socioeconomic backgrounds or students who had experienced limited educational opportunities.[16]

The University- and State-Imposed Race Bans With 50 to 75 Percent Admitted on Academic Merit

On July 20, 1995, the UC Board of Regents approved an admissions policy prohibiting all schools in the UC system from using “race, religion, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin as criteria for admission to the University or to any program of study.”[17] The policy further stated that the university would admit no less than 50 percent and no more than 75 percent of applicants on academic criteria alone.[18]

On November 6, 1996, the voters of California passed Proposition 209, further prohibiting the use of race in college admissions for any state body. The proposition was incorporated into the California Constitution and took effect on August 28, 1997. Several lower court decisions challenged the proposition, but the U.S. Supreme Court denied further appeal on November 3, 1997, and the proposition remains in effect today.[19] The first UC students the proposition affected were those entering in the fall of 1998 (see table 2.2).

The race bans imposed by Proposition 209 and the university’s Board of Regents, therefore, began with the same entering undergraduates. The university-imposed race ban, emphasizing academic merit, was only in effect until May 16, 2001, when the Board of Regents rescinded it. With Proposition 209 becoming part of the state constitution, the regents’ act, in effect, shifted accountability for the race ban to the state. However, in addition to rescinding the ban on race, the regents did away with the requirement that 50 to 75 percent of admissions be based on academic merit alone.[20]

The Board of Regents approved a 4 percent plan on March 19, 1999. Referred to as “eligibility in the local context,” it guaranteed admission in the UC system to the top 4 percent of students in California high schools, if the students had successfully completed specific college preparatory coursework. This policy supplemented other existing admissions policies and took effect for students entering UC as freshmen in the fall 2001.[21]

The “Eligibility in the Local Context” program, or 4 percent plan, did not bring about a major change in UC admissions. The California Master Plan for Education already guaranteed admission to California residents graduating from high school in the top 12.5 percent of students statewide, and an estimated 60 to 65 percent of students in the top 4 percent of their local high schools were already eligible for UC admission under the statewide 12.5 percent plan. Thus, the 4 percent plan merely broadened the UC eligible pool to include an estimated additional 3,500 to 4,000 students who ranked near the top of their schools but were not among the top 12.5 percent of students statewide.[22] The addition of the 4 percent plan was expected to increase underrepresented minorities, yielding an additional 300 to 700 Chicano/Latino and African American students within UC’s eligibility pool.[23]

On November 15, 2001, the UC Board of Regents approved a comprehensive review process that would evaluate and admit applicants to UC campuses beginning in fall 2002 using multiple measures of achievement and promise and consider the context in which each student had demonstrated academic accomplishment. The board further indicated that the comprehensive review policies “shall be used fairly, shall not use racial preferences of any kind, and shall comply with Proposition 209.”[24]

The comprehensive review replaced the requirement that 50 to 75 percent of students be admitted on academic criteria alone. Thus, the older system created a two-tier selection process whereby campuses used only the 10 academic criteria to admit 50 to 75 percent of students. The remainder of the students could be selected using a set of 14 criteria, four of which were nonacademic. Under the comprehensive review system, all 14 criteria are used to select all students. Thus, student records are analyzed not just for grades and test scores, but also for evidence of such qualities as motivation, leadership, intellectual curiosity, and initiative.[25]

University officials tout the comprehensive review for leading to a more thorough and complete review of the broad variety of applicants’ academic and personal qualifications, yet continuing to ensure the admission of highly qualified students.[26] Critics of the comprehensive review charge that it is a “backdoor attempt to boost minority enrollment in the post-Proposition 209 era at the expense of objective, academically based entrance criteria.”[27]

Table 2.3 lists the various admissions policies that have applied to UC and illustrates the school years for which they were in effect. With regard to timing, the policies follow three co-existing patterns. First, the 12.5 percent plan and the admission by exception policy were in effect throughout the period studied here, which includes the 1995–96 school year through the 2002–03 school year.

Second, bans on the use of race for undergraduate admissions were not in effect before the fall 1998 school year, but have been since that time. Approved in mid-1995, the UC ban on race did not take effect for undergraduates until the 1998–99 school year; Proposition 209, passed by the voters in 1996, affected the same entering students, and remains in effect today.

Third, a series of other admissions policies occurred during the period studied. Affirmative action programs, including outreach, were in place during the pre-ban school years of fall 1995 to spring 1998. An emphasis on academic merit—the requirement that 50 to 75 percent of entering students be admitted on academic criteria alone—was imposed from fall of 1998 to spring 2002. “Eligibility in the local context,” the 4 percent plan, was implemented in fall 2001, and overlapped for one year with the 50 to 75 percent academic merit requirement and for one year, so far, with the latest program, the comprehensive review. The comprehensive review was used for the first time with the class entering in the fall of 2002. The 4 percent plan and the comprehensive review, along with other new policies to take effect with future admissions, were intended to diversify the class to achieve representation of minorities closer to that achieved with affirmative action programs before the use of race was banned.

For this study, University of California data were obtained for California resident applications, admissions, and enrollees by race.[28] The analysis that follows examines first the racial and ethnic composition for the 1995–96 school year and contrasts it with other pre- and post-ban years and admissions policies that were in effect.

Figure 2.1 shows enrollment data by race of freshmen entering the University of California system in fall 1995 when affirmative action programs were still in place. The university as a whole had approximately equal proportions of Asian Pacific American and white students enrolled (36 to 37 percent) in the 1995–96 school year. Sixteen percent of students were Hispanic, 4 percent black, and 1 percent Native American.

The UC campuses varied in the racial and ethnic composition of 1995 freshmen, between campuses that were majority white, slightly preponderant in whites, majority Asian Pacific American, and diverse with a slight preponderance of Asian Pacific Americans. The Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz campuses were majority white—59 and 55 percent, respectively. The Davis and San Diego campuses had more whites than Asians, but not a white majority, with 43 to 44 percent white and 34 and 39 percent Asian Pacific Americans. Irvine was majority Asian Pacific American (60 percent). Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Riverside had more Asian Pacific Americans (38 to 41percent) than whites (25 to 30 percent), and larger proportions of Hispanics (17 to 22 percent) and African Americans (7 percent), making them the most diverse campuses (see figure 2.1).

As for people of color other than Asian Pacific Americans: Los Angeles and Riverside had the most Hispanics (22 percent); Santa Cruz and Berkeley each 17 percent; Santa Barbara, Davis, and Irvine, 13 to 14 percent Hispanics; San Diego, only 9 percent. Perhaps the most striking observation is that African Americans were never more than 7 percent at any UC campus. Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and Davis had 3 to 4 percent blacks and Irvine and San Diego, only 1 to 2 percent. The proportions of Native Americans ranged between 0.5 and 1.8 percent at the various campuses (see figure 2.1).

Changes over time have brought slightly more preponderance of Asian Pacific Americans to the racial/ethnic character of the UC campuses. From the entering class of 1996 to that of 2001, the UC system had 36 to 39 percent Asian Pacific Americans and 33 to 40 percent whites. Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz continued to have majority-white campuses; Irvine continued to have an Asian Pacific American majority. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Riverside maintained the preponderance of Asian Pacific Americans, if not the diversity of other minority groups. Davis and San Diego, which had a slight preponderance of whites in 1995–96, changed over time to have a slight preponderance of Asian Pacific Americans. San Diego began to have a greater proportion of Asian Pacific Americans than whites with entering freshmen in fall 1998 when the race ban was first imposed and thereafter. Davis showed more Asian Pacific Americans than whites in fall 2001.[29]

Figure 2.1
Racial/Ethnic Composition of First-Time Freshmen Enrolled in the University of California System, 1995–96

Source: Compiled from University of California, "Application, Admissions and Enrollment of California Resident Freshmen for Fall 1995 through 2001."

The preponderance of Asian Pacific Americans and whites in the UC system and its campuses hide, however, the subtle dwindling in the enrolled proportions of Hispanic, black, and Native Americans—the underrepresented minority groups.[30] The UC system had 16 percent Hispanics in 1995–96, but has had only 12 to 14 percent thereafter. It had 4 percent blacks in 1995–96, but has often had only 3 percent since then. It had 1.1 percent Native Americans in 1995–96, but only 0.5 to 1.0 percent in the ensuing school years.[31] The Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses, which had been quite diverse with 26 and 30 percent Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans in 1995–96, had only 16 and 17 percent in 2001–02.[32] It is these changes in enrollment that will be analyzed below in light of the various admissions policies.

Table 2.4 shows changes in the representation of blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans among the University of California’s first-time enrolled students from classes entering in 1995 through 2001. The first columns show the number and percentage of these groups that were admitted in the 1995–96 school year. The remaining columns show, for the fall 1996 through fall 2001 school years, the difference between the numbers of these groups enrolled and the number that would have been enrolled had the proportional representation of the group in the 1995–96 school year been sustained along with the growth of the university. Deficits are shown in parentheses.

For the UC system as a whole, all three groups show deficits in the numbers enrolled for every year since the baseline 1995–96. For this six-year period, a total of nearly 1,600 fewer African Americans, approximately 4,000 fewer Hispanics, and 675 fewer Native Americans have been enrolled than would have been had the representation of these groups in the baseline year been preserved (see table 2.4).

The latter two pre-ban years (1996–97 and 1997–98) show smaller deficits in this expected number of enrollees than the years following the race ban. For blacks, the UC system shows a deficit of about 100 enrollees in the pre-ban years and between 320 and 377 in the race-ban years. For Hispanics, there were deficits of 409 and 564 enrollees in the pre-ban years. The deficit grew to 933 Hispanics in 1998–99, the first year of the race ban, and then waned some after that to a deficit of 614 in 2001–02. For Native Americans, deficits in enrollees increased across the years from 24 in 1996–97 to 160 in 2001–02, showing no obvious effect of the ban on race.

Rarely did schools in the UC system enroll proportionally more of these groups than they had in 1995–96. Santa Barbara was an exception, having enrolled 14 to 16 percent Hispanics each year since the baseline year. San Diego was able to enroll proportionally more of the underrepresented minority groups than in 1995–96 in a number of instances, possibly because the campus had such small proportions enrolled in the first place. Berkeley was able to enroll a larger number of blacks in the last pre-ban year, 1997–98; Irvine was able to do so recently for the 2001–02 school year.

Table 2.4
Surplus or Deficit in Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans Enrolled in University of California Relative to 1995–96 School Year

In short, UC data show that seemingly low proportions of African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are enrolled in the system and that the percentages have diminished since the 1995–96 school year, even in the pre-ban years. The percentages dropped further after the race ban went into effect, and have not recovered in recent years despite changes in policy intended to diversify the student populations. At the same time, some campuses did better than others at enrolling underrepresented students despite admissions policies that the state and the university system imposed.

The racial/ethnic composition of the university’s enrollment is partly determined by who is eligible and who applies to the school. Each of the underrepresented minority groups is a larger proportion of high school diploma recipients in California than of UC applicants. Of the spring 2000 California high school diploma recipients, 7.3 percent were African American, 32.6 percent were Hispanic, and 0.9 percent, Native American.[33] The proportions among UC applicants were only 4.2, 14.6, and 0.7 for African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans applying for the 2000–01 school year.[34] If UC received applications from the top 12.5 percent of African American and Hispanic diploma recipients from California, the university would have received more than 2,800 applications from African Americans and nearly 12,600 from Hispanics.[35] Instead, the system received only 2,376 and 8,234 applicants from African Americans and Hispanics for that fall.[36]

The University of California’s applications and admissions follow trends similar to the enrollment data. Table 2.5 shows the numbers and percentage of persons from underrepresented minority groups who were admitted to the UC system for selected years—the baseline 1995–96 school year, the first year of the race ban (1998–99), and the most recent year (2001–02). The table reveals, first, that both the numbers and percentages of the underrepresented minority applicants and admissions declined when the race ban was imposed. For example, about 150 fewer African Americans applied to UC in the year the race ban was implemented than in 1995–96. About 300 fewer African Americans were admitted to UC in the first year of the race ban than in 1995–96. About 450 fewer Hispanics were admitted when the race ban was first imposed than had been in the baseline year.

By the 2001–02 school year, UC received more applications from and admitted more African Americans and Hispanics than it had in 1995–96. However, the proportions of these two groups, although larger than when the race ban was first instituted, remained smaller than during the baseline year. Thus, African Americans were 4.3 percent of applications in 2001–02, but had been 5.0 percent in 1995–96. African Americans were 3.4 percent of those admitted to UC in 2001–02, but had been 4.4 percent of those admitted in the baseline year. Native Americans were only 0.6 percent of applicants or those admitted in 2001–02, although they had been 1.0 percent in 1995–96. The numbers of Native American applicants and admissions were still lower than they were in 1995–96 (see table 2.5).

Despite the seemingly small decreases in the numbers of underrepresented minorities admitted to UC when the race ban was imposed, dramatic changes occurred in the admissions of some institutions making up the UC system. Figure 2.2 shows the ratio of the number of students admitted to the number of students who applied for African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. The graphs depict these ratios for the university system and three of its campuses—Los Angeles, Berkeley, and San Diego.

The UC admission rates are lower for African Americans than for Hispanics or Native Americans, and lower after the race ban than before. Between 80 and 87 out of 100 Native American or Hispanic applicants were admitted to UC in the years before the race ban, but only 71 to 73 out of 100 African American applicants. In the years since the race ban was imposed, 73 to 82 out of 100 Native American and Hispanic applicants were admitted, but only 64 to 67 out of 100 African Americans. At the Los Angeles, Berkeley, and San Diego campuses, the admission rates for the underrepresented minorities are even lower. Although these campuses admitted between 38 and 55 out of 100 African American applicants before the race ban, they only admitted between 20 and 28 out of 100 when the ban was imposed and thereafter. They admitted between 40 and 58 out of 100 Hispanic applicants before the race ban, and between 20 and 36 out of 100 after. Between 50 and 73 out of 100 Native American applicants were admitted before the ban, and only 18 to 36 out of 100 after (see figure 2.2). Figure 2.2 does not show any upswing in the acceptance rates of these three campuses suggesting greater likelihood of underrepresented minorities being admitted as the new admissions policies, implemented in 2001 and touted for promoting diversity, would lead one to expect.

Furthermore, a comparison of admission rates and enrollment rates in table 2.5 shows that these underrepresented minorities are often an even smaller proportion of students who enroll in the university than they were of those who were admitted. For example, although 14.6 percent of persons admitted for the 2001–02 school year were Hispanic, only 13.5 percent of those who actually enrolled were Hispanic. Thus, UC was not always as successful in enrolling persons from these underrepresented groups as it was in admitting them.

Recent news articles have reported on admissions for fall 2002 freshmen, stating that the University of California has admitted more minority students for the first time since affirmative action was abandoned. According to one article, 19.1 percent of the university system’s admissions for fall 2002 were from underrepresented minority groups.[37] This compares favorably with the admissions figure of 18.8 percent for these groups for the pre-ban year of 1997–98. However, as indicated here, the percentages of these minorities had already begun decreasing by fall 1997. Thus, 2002 admissions still fall below the 21.2 percent of the 1995–96 admissions that were African American, Hispanic, and Native American (adding figures from table 2.5).

Five of the University of California campuses—Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco—have medical schools; Berkeley, Davis, and Los Angeles have law schools (see table 2.1, above). Table 2.6 shows the numbers and percentages of applicants, admissions, and new registrants in the three underrepresented minority groups for University of California medical and law schools. The race ban was imposed upon graduate admissions one year earlier than on undergraduates.[38] Thus, the 1997–98 school year is shown as the first year of the race ban, and 1998–99 as the second year.

First, only a few (just three in fall 1995) Native Americans were admitted to UC medical schools prior to the race ban. Given these very small numbers, improved performance in later years (five in fall 1997) is hardly significant (see table 2.6). The general trends described below with other groups do not apply to Native Americans in regard to medical schools.

Apart from this special occurrence with Native Americans, the University of California medical and law schools had large drops in the numbers of applicants, admissions, and new registrants for the three underrepresented minority groups from the 1995–96 pre-ban year to 1997–98, when the ban was implemented. In most instances, applications continued to drop in 1998–99, the second year of the race ban. Furthermore, the proportional representation of these groups among applicants, admissions, and new registrants decreased when the race ban was imposed. The lower representation of African Americans in law schools was particularly severe, as is shown in more detail in figure 2.3. African Americans were 7.2 percent of those admitted to UC law schools in 1995–96, but only 2.2 percent of admissions in 1997–98 (see table 2.6 and figure 2.3).

Table 2.6
University of California Applicants, Admissions, and Enrollment for Underrepresented Minority Groups in Medical and Law Schools for Selected School Years

Whatever professional school admissions policies were put in place by fall 2001, they increased the admissions among African Americans slightly. However, the increases in admissions were not always realized in enrollment. The proportions of African Americans and Hispanics enrolled in UC medical and law schools remained below the levels of 1995–96, and the proportion of Native Americans enrolled in law schools remained below that baseline year (see figure 2.3 and table 2.6). In short, for the 2001–02 school year, the five UC medical schools enrolled an average of four African Americans, nine Hispanics, and no Native Americans each. The law schools each enrolled an average of nine African Americans, 19 Hispanics, and one to two Native Americans.

Before the ban, the University of California had affirmative action programs. When Proposition 209 passed, there was uncertainty about whether the race ban applied to outreach. Ultimately, programs to diversify the university’s student body were targeted differently and were referred to as outreach.[39] Thus, not just admissions, but outreach programs were affected by the race ban.

UC affirmative action efforts were characterized as “race-attentive” programs because race was one factor considered, but no student was to be admitted on the basis of race alone. With few exceptions, all applicants must meet UC academic requirements to be admitted.[40] Instead, efforts were directed toward bolstering the eligibility of underrepresented minority groups. In the mid-1980s, these included programs to encourage African Americans and Latinos to attend college, to provide counseling and tutoring to help retain more minorities in the UC system, and to work with public school teachers to raise the quality of teaching at schools with high minority enrollments.[41]

The Early Outreach Program (later the Early Academic Outreach Program) helped high school minority students take college preparatory classes. The program gave parents information about college entrance requirements and financial aid, brought students to campus for visits, and provided summer enrichment and UC minority students to act as tutors and role models.[42] A second key outreach program encouraged minority students to concentrate on mathematics, science, and engineering and offered internships, research support, and stipends for minority undergraduates studying these subjects.[43]

The Young Black Scholars program was a UC Los Angeles effort to increase representation of minority students by helping promising students prepare for college. It provided academic support and informal mentoring to ninth- through 12th-grade students in the Los Angeles school district and several surrounding communities. The academic support included workshops on writing skills, math, and science and preparation for college entrance exams. Community organizations provided mentors matched to the career, subject, or interests of the students. In 1995–96, the program had 800 students, most of whom were headed to college.[44]

UC affirmative action programs were never as well financed, widespread, comprehensive, or successful as one might hope. The Board of Regents often planned expanded outreach to African Americans and Latinos, but was not always successful in obtaining the requested state funding.[45]

In July 1999, proposed legislation to exempt certain outreach efforts and the pursuit of diversity goals from the affirmative action ban was vetoed by the governor.[46] On November 30, 2000, the California Supreme Court ruled on a San Jose contracting program that government agencies could no longer limit recruitment efforts to women and minorities. It dismissed affirmative action programs as “proportional group representation” that grant preferences in favor of minorities, but gave limited guidance on how to construct programs that comply with Proposition 209.[47] Subsequently, a court distinguished between outreach efforts “designed to broaden the pool of potential applicants without reliance on . . . impermissible race or gender classifications” and those that discriminate against or grant preferences to individuals or groups based upon race or gender. The court declared the latter prohibited, but not the former.[48] The University of California, however, had reconstructed its programs to no longer use race and ethnicity in identifying recipients of outreach long before these court and legislative decisions were made.

To refocus the programs not to directly use race to identify schools to receive outreach, UC’s president, Richard C. Atkinson, directed the campuses to target schools that had significant educational disadvantages, such as limited college preparatory courses and a poor record of sending students to the university.[49] Even before any prohibition was issued against targeting outreach programs to particular races or ethnic groups, Atkinson had decided to focus programs using geographic distribution, income level, or lower socioeconomic background, and high schools with low numbers of students going to UC—criteria he claimed would primarily reach black and Latino high schools.[50]

In 1997, because of anticipated drops in the numbers of black and Latino students admitted, UC’s Board of Regents recommended a major expansion of, often doubling, the university’s college-prep programs in high schools and the extension of them deeper into middle and elementary schools.[51] The expanded effort included:

Examples of programs to increase college eligibility among minority students are (1) UC Irvine’s Partnership to Accelerate College Eligibility (PACE), started in 1997 in five poor school districts to raise the reading skills of second graders, prepare middle school students for algebra, and get high school students ready for the SAT;[59] (2) Berkeley’s program, Break the Cycle, in which university students give individual math instruction to neighboring poor and minority students;[60] and (3) UC San Diego’s charter school, the Preuss School, which grooms needy middle and high school students for the rigors of elite colleges with in-depth instruction, extended class periods, longer than usual school days and school years, and mentoring.[61]

Yet, while UC outreach programs are no longer targeted by race or ethnicity, there are some privately funded programs for underrepresented minority groups. A UC Santa Barbara project, called Engaging Latino Communities for Education or ENLACE, was implemented in 2001 and funded through the W.K. Kellogg Foundation with a $1.5 million grant. The plan targeted three areas in California and called for educating families about college options, showing bilingual public service commercials and video histories of Latino leaders on cable stations, and assigning Latino college students as mentors to grade-schoolers. It emphasized literacy for students in elementary grades, college preparation for high school students, and retention for college students.[62]

Officials at UC medical and law schools recognize a vast need to increase the numbers of underrepresented students among enrollees in the professional schools.[63] To combat shortages of African American and Latino professionals in medicine and law, university officials emphasize a need for outreach targeted to underrepresented minority groups and for an overhaul of admissions to include nonacademic criteria and lowered entrance requirements, not necessarily nonqualifying ones, for these students. The decision to eliminate race-based affirmative action in admissions hurt professional schools through both outreach and admissions practices.[64]

Current outreach programs for professional education include high school science fairs aimed at motivating more young minority students to consider becoming physicians, and incentive programs, for example, that assist new medical school graduates with paying off large school loans in exchange for agreeing to work in underserved communities.[65]

The University of California has used a statewide 12.5 percent plan for college admissions for decades both with and without affirmative action. Bans on the use of race for admissions imposed in the late 1990s resulted in reductions in the already small proportions of African American, Hispanic, and Native American students admitted and enrolled in the system, as demonstrated here with undergraduate and professional school data. The university has instituted modifications to its admissions plan to help diversify the student population, including a 4 percent plan to admit the top students in any California high school, initiated for fall 2001, and a comprehensive review process, used first for fall 2002. These changes have led to small increases in the presence of these underrepresented minority groups. However, the success of the new policies is often judged against the year before the race ban was imposed, when anticipation of implementation had apparently already led to the dismantling of some affirmative action programs. The proportions of African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are not as high as those in the 1995–96 school year, when admissions processing occurred before the race ban was announced. Furthermore, the proportions of these underrepresented groups were not large even under affirmative action, and higher admission rates have not always translated into higher enrollment rates.

The University of California operates an array of outreach programs intended to increase students’ rates of eligibility for college. Before the race ban, these programs were known as affirmative action and targeted to minority students. Because of the race ban, the university targeted the programs more generally to disadvantaged students, doubled their outreach efforts and extended them deeper into middle and elementary schools. The effects of these efforts were also represented in the analysis of trends in admissions and enrollment data that revealed only small increases in the presence of underrepresented minority groups on UC campuses. However, the full effects of academic enrichment programs to middle and elementary school students will not be known for years to come.

The University of California system differs from those in Texas and Florida, which are analyzed below, in several ways. First, the analysis of California shows the effects of a race ban, since the percentage plan has been in place for decades. In Texas and Florida, analyses show the before and after effects of percentage plans adopted together with race bans. Second, the 12.5 percent plan applies only to California’s research institutions, that is, the University of California system. Texas and Florida imposed the percentage plan more broadly. Third, in California students must be in the top 12.5 percent of students statewide to gain admission to UC. The 4 percent plan relaxed this criterion so that the best students in each high school would qualify even if they were not in the top 12.5 percent statewide. In Texas and Florida the percentage is applied to the students’ high schools, not statewide.

The March 1996 ruling in Hopwood v. State of Texas by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals abolished the use of race or ethnicity as a college recruitment, admission, financial aid, and student retention criterion in Texas.[66] Centering on the University of Texas School of Law, the ruling found that by considering race or ethnicity in its admissions process the law school was violating the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.[67] The court’s decision ended Texas’ use of the “Classic Model,” which incorporated affirmative action, for making admissions decisions.[68] With its history of segregation, Texas had been hindered in its efforts to establish an effective affirmative action college admissions policy. Partial success was only achieved in the late 1980s, when minority enrollment increased slowly and only slightly.[69]

The Hopwood decision has had a lasting impact on the participation of minority group members in Texas’ institutions of higher learning, especially at its flagship institutions. Minority undergraduate and graduate enrollment and admissions have largely, except for the rare instance, declined at Texas’ public institutions. This is true for the state’s premier schools and programs, including the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) for undergraduate schools and UT School of Law and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston School of Medicine (UTMB) for professional programs. To address the dearth of and decline in minority undergraduate students, Texas instituted a percentage plan aimed at maintaining minority group access to colleges and universities.[70] The burden of maintaining minorities’ access to professional programs has fallen to Texas’ public institutions of higher learning because the percentage plan does not apply to professional programs.

The following analysis reveals that Texas’ public institutions are providing fewer minorities with an opportunity to obtain a quality, if any, undergraduate education. Minority group members seeking to pursue professional academic training also face an often insurmountable barrier. Data analysis of undergraduate and professional enrollments and admissions pre- and post-Hopwood reveal an overall, sometimes drastic, decline in the number of minorities. This staff analysis updates the Commission’s earlier findings in its 2000 statement Toward an Understanding of Percentage Plans in Higher Education: Are They Effective Substitutes for Affirmative Action? which focused on UT-Austin. The current paper expands the analysis of professional programs to test the impact of the Hopwood decision on professional school admissions because Texas’ percentage plan does not apply to professional schools.[71] Data sources include the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Education Data Center; the University of Texas at Austin, Office of Admissions; and a report examining the implementation and results of the Texas Top 10 Percent Law.[72]

Following the Hopwood decision, the state of Texas instituted an admissions percentage plan (HB 588) in 1998.[73] The plan guarantees high school graduates in the top 10 percent of their class admission to Texas’ public institutions of higher learning.[74] Unlike the percentage plans in California and Florida, Texas’ plan guarantees eligible first-time freshman students admission to the Texas public institution of their choice.[75]

HB 588 requires institutions to review the academic records and other factors they deem appropriate of non-top 10 percent applicants to determine individual abilities to perform university-level work.[76] This assessment also resolves whether an applicant would benefit from a retention program. Universities may require academically deficient students to enroll in enrichment courses and orientation programs during their academic career.[77] UT-Austin[78] has established guidelines that direct its retention officer to carefully review the files of top 10 percent students who have “weak high school preparation or . . . extremely low SAT/ACT test scores . . . to determine the appropriate academic support required for success.”[79]

The Texas plan also provides public universities with admissions guidelines for students not ranked in the top 10 percent of their class. In addition to considering a student’s academic performance, universities are instructed to “consider all of, any of, or a combination of” 17 other factors when determining whether to admit a first-time freshman applicant,[80] including:

Texas A&M[82] may provide a limited number of those lacking college preparatory coursework or strong academic credentials provisional admission contingent upon successfully completing a summer school program at the university.[83]

UT-Austin, the University of Texas System, and Texas A&M also responded to Hopwood. UT-Austin ensures top 10 percent students enrollment in their choice of major, with the exceptions of the architecture and fine arts programs.[84] According to UT-Austin’s admissions office, students admitted into their first-choice major enroll more frequently than students who are offered admission to their second choice.[85] Students recruited by the academic institutions in the UT system are given information on the educational opportunities available to them at these universities.[86] Recruitment of “socially and economically disadvantaged students” is enhanced by innovative approaches to meeting financial aid needs, according to officials.[87] UT system institutions also run student retention programs.[88]

In December 2001, Texas A&M University System regents tentatively approved a plan that would permit the university to pursue the top 20 percent of students at approximately 250 Texas high schools that had been deemed low performing or disadvantaged.[89] The goal: to automatically admit to Texas A&M graduating seniors from these schools who ranked in the top 20 percent of their class if they met the university’s requirements for curriculum, grade point average, and standardized test scores.[90] However, unresolved legal concerns prompted university officials to table the proposal temporarily in March 2002.[91] When revived, the plan will include about 100 eligible high schools and be on sounder legal footing given standards set after the Hopwood decision, according to university officials.[92]

Other universities in Texas have also created policies within the legal boundaries established by Hopwood for increasing minority enrollment. Texas Tech University, for instance, has been increasing the opportunity for students to participate in retention programs at the college and university levels.[93] According to university officials, many ongoing programs target underrepresented groups and will provide greater diversity among students in the next few years.[94]

During the years immediately preceding Hopwood, the University of Texas used what was known as a “Classic Model” for making admissions decisions, which relied on the combined SAT score and high school class rank, but this method alone had not produced diverse classes.[95] The SAT, like virtually all standardized tests, has a well-documented history of differential performance gaps among socioeconomic and racial/ethnic groups and between genders.[96] As a result, to meet its diversity goals, and in order to enroll a freshman class whose demographics bore some resemblance to the state’s, the university continued to use the Classic Model, with affirmative action, until Hopwood forced its removal.[97]

In 1994, prior to Hopwood, whites made up 64 percent of the total enrollment at UT-Austin. Minorities accounted for 36 percent; blacks made up 5 percent and Hispanics accounted for nearly 15 percent. During the next two years, the percentage of whites and Hispanics continued to increase slightly as the percentage of blacks continued to decline. The summer/fall 1996 freshman class was the last one to be admitted under the Classic Model. In 1996, the percentage of whites and Hispanics enrolled at UT-Austin increased from the previous year to 65 and 16 percent, respectively, but the percentage of enrolled blacks decreased by one percentage point to 4 percent. By 1997, minority enrollment as a percentage of the total enrollment had declined to its lowest point since 1994; blacks accounted for less than 3 percent of the total enrollment at the UT-Austin and Hispanics accounted for nearly 13 percent (see figure 2.4).

Between 1997 and 1999, after the Hopwood decision, minority enrollment for both blacks and Hispanics increased (see figure 2.4). The largest increase in minority enrollment occurred between 1998 and 1999, which was the first year that the percentage plan was in effect. The enrollment rate of Asian Pacific Americans also increased, and by 2000, Asian Pacific Americans accounted for 17 percent of all freshmen enrolled at UT-Austin.[98] Between 1999 and 2000, Hispanic enrollment at UT-Austin decreased by one percentage point to 13 percent and the enrollment rate for blacks remained unchanged at 4 percent.

By 2001, the enrollment rates for blacks had decreased to 3 percent from 4 percent in 2000. Although the enrollment rate for blacks decreased, those rates for both Hispanics and Asian Pacific Americans increased. Hispanic enrollment rates increased slightly to 14 percent from 13 percent. Enrollment rates for Asian Pacific Americans increased to 19 percent (an all-time high) from 17 percent.[99] The enrollment rate for whites was at an all-time low of 61 percent. The 2001 enrollment rates for both blacks and Hispanics were lower than the pre-Hopwood rates (see figure 2.4).

The University of Texas-Austin still struggles to recruit black students, who constitute 12 percent of the state’s population.[100] Bruce Walker, the university’s admissions director, stated, “We haven’t found that magic that makes the numbers jump quickly as we have with Hispanics and Asians.”[101] University administrators continue to modify the implementation of the law. For example, UT-Austin recently started a “Keep Texans in Texas!” plan, which matches scholarship offers from out-of-state universities made to students in 130 high schools, in an effort to attract and retain students from the state.[102]

Figure 2.4
The Effects of Hopwood on Minority Enrollment at UT–Austin, 1994–2001

Source: University of Texas at Austin, Office of Admissions, Implementation and Results of HB 588, Report 2; Gary M. Lavergne and Bruce Walker, Implementation and Results of the Texas Automatic Admissions Law HB 588, Report 4, p. 4.

Although the number of undergraduate minorities applying to the University of Texas-Austin has continued to increase since 1996, the percentage of those applying who are admitted has declined and the number of those admitted who enroll has also declined. In 1996, 809 blacks applied to UT-Austin and more than half were admitted. By 2001, the number of blacks applying to UT-Austin had increased by 24 percent, but the percentage of applicants who were admitted had decreased by 19 percentage points. Only 38 percent of black applicants were admitted in 2001 and of those admitted only 266 enrolled. A pattern similar to that of blacks is evident for Hispanics. In 1996, 2,492 Hispanics applied to UT-Austin and 65 percent of those applicants were admitted. By 2001, the number of Hispanics applying to UT-Austin had increased by 20 percent but the percentage of applicants who were admitted had decreased by 15 percentage points (see table 2.8).

The acceptance rate (referred to here as the percentage of applied admitted) may better gauge the impact of percentage plans. Table 2.8 shows the existence of an alarming trend: acceptance rates have not kept pace with the number of minority students applying to the UT-Austin.

The automatic admissions policy mandated by HB 588, or the 10 percent plan, has had an impact on enrollment and admission at the University of Texas-Austin. The number of minority freshmen admitted to UT-Austin continued to increase during the first three years of the plan. The largest increase in the number of minorities admitted to UT-Austin occurred between 1998 and 1999, when 125 more blacks and 177 more Hispanics were admitted (see table 2.9). Such increases are partially results of an increase in the number of students applying because of new efforts that encourage minority high school students to attend UT-Austin.[103]

The greatest change in the rate of the top 10 percent of students admitted to UT-Austin occurred between 1998 and 1999, when the percentage of blacks and Hispanics admitted increased by 87 and 24 percent, respectively (see figure 2.5). This increase is partially explained by a change in the university’s recruitment policy and the reassessment of recruitment, retention, and scholarship programs that occurred during that time.[104] Historically, UT-Austin had admitted students from only about 50 of the same schools within the state. The new policy had not brought about aggressive recruitment of students from Texas high schools that historically had sent few students to the University of Texas. As a result, recruiters began targeting students in ninth and 10th grades as prospects for the program. To draw students attending schools traditionally underrepresented to UT-Austin, the Longhorn Scholarship program, aimed at specific low-income high schools, was also created and awarded 64 four-year need-based scholarships in its first year.

Between 1999 and 2000, the percentage of minorities being admitted to UT-Austin increased, but to a lesser extent. By the fourth year of the plan, the admittance rate for both blacks and Hispanics decreased. Between 2000 and 2001, the number of black students admitted to UT-Austin fell by nearly 16 percent, a rate nearly 14 times greater than that for Hispanic students (see figure 2.5). The reason for the decline in minority enrollment, especially for blacks, is unclear. But what is clear is that efforts such as recruitment, financial aid, and academic support attract and retain minorities. As stated by Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard, “if you have a percent plan without those, you don’t have too much.”[105]

A statewide survey of minority high school students concluded that universities need to increase recruitment efforts and improve communication about financial aid opportunities.[106] Students indicated that a welcoming campus environment, financial and academic assistance, and multicultural programs were the three top factors that could improve retention of minority students.

Figure 2.5
Change in the Top 10 Percent of Students Admitted to UT-Austin by Ethnicity, 1997–2001

Minority Professional Enrollment and Admissions in Selected Programs Pre- and Post-Hopwood

The Hopwood decision immediately affected the enrollment of African Americans and Hispanics in Texas’ public law and medical schools, causing a significant drop in the number of African American and Hispanic law and medical students.[107] Since HB 588 does not apply to professional schools, it plays no role in providing equal access to professional schools for minority students. Thus, Texas professional schools are not legally required to accept the top 10 percent of college graduates from public and private colleges and universities throughout the state. The effects of Hopwood on minority enrollments and admissions in several professional schools are examined below.

The effects of the Hopwood decision on the UT School of Law, the premier public law school in the state, are apparent after analysis of enrollment data for the academic years 1996–97 through 2000–01.[108] In 1996–97, the final year in which affirmative action played a role in admissions policies, African Americans and Hispanics were 6.4 and 11.8 percent, respectively, of total enrolled students, while Asian Pacific Americans represented 5.8 percent and Native American/Alaska Natives[109] 0.6 percent of the student body. White students accounted for 73.7 percent of total enrolled students at this time. During the initial year of the restrictions imposed by Hopwood, 1997–98, both white and Asian Pacific American student enrollment increased. For white students, the enrollment percentage rose to 77 percent, while for Asian Pacific Americans it reached 6.6 percent. Conversely, African American enrollment dipped to 4.7 percent, Hispanic enrollment to 10.2 percent, and Native American/Alaska Native to 0.5 percent (see table 2.10).

In 1998–99, there was a decline in enrollment from the previous academic year for all groups, except Native American/Alaska Natives. However, only African American and Hispanic enrollments declined from 1996–97, the final pre-Hopwood year. Specifically, African Americans represented only 2.9 percent of enrolled students, while Hispanics represented 8.9 percent in 1998–99. The previous year, African American and Hispanic enrollments had been 6.4 and 11.8 percent, respectively. Academic year 1999–2000 witnessed a decline in enrollment across all groups compared with the previous year. However, once more, only African American and Hispanic enrollments were reduced from the pre-Hopwood numbers. The final year of the analysis reveals a decrease in the enrollment percentage of all groups, except Native American/Alaska Natives, from the final pre-Hopwood year (see table 2.10). Yet, perhaps most disturbing is the steady decline of minority enrollments from 1996 through 2000. In 1996–97, minorities represented 24.7 percent of enrolled students; by 1999–2000 they were only 16.1 percent of the student body. Although in 2000–01 minority enrollment rose to 17.2 percent, this was only a 1.1 percent increase from the previous academic year but an overall decline of 7.5 percent from 1996–97, the final pre-Hopwood year. Finally, it must be noted that both 1999–2000 and 2000–01 include large numbers of “Unknown/Not Reported” entries. If many or all of these enrollments were members of a specific minority group, however unlikely that probability is, this analysis would have to be revised to account for that.

Declining minority enrollment numbers at the UT School of Law only reveal one aspect of the situation encountered by minority law school applicants in Texas.[110] Enrollment, of course, is contingent upon gaining admittance to the particular law school. In this respect, minorities have encountered varying degrees of success reliant upon the particular law school applied to. Admissions numbers are down for all minorities at the UT School of Law since the Hopwood decision while quite variable at the three other Texas public law schools. As seen in figures 2.6 through 2.10, all minority admissions numbers in 2000–01 were below those of the final pre-Hopwood year of 1996–97 at the UT School of Law.[111] Thus, while African Americans were gaining admission to the school at a rate of 5.9 percent in 1996–97, by 2000–01 this rate had dropped to 3.6 percent. Asian Pacific Americans, Hispanics, and Native American/Alaska Natives also experienced varying rates of decline over this period. The only group to have experienced a higher admissions rate than 1996–97 over this five-year period was Asian Pacific Americans. In 1997–98, the first year Hopwood was in effect, the admissions rate for this group was 9.9 percent, compared with 8.4 percent in 1996–97. Since then, however, admission rates have been below 8.4 percent for Asian Pacific Americans (see figures 2.6 through 2.10).

Of course, minority applicants in Texas have other law schools from which to choose, although the UT School of Law is the premier program in the state. Success has varied for minorities at the three other Texas public law schools. At the University of Houston Law Center (UH), the African American admissions rate in 2000–01 (3.2 percent) was below that of 1996–97 (3.7 percent) (see figures 2.6 and 2.10). Although peeking in 1998–99 at 4.1 percent (see figure 2.8), the admissions rate has been in decline since then (see figures 2.9 and 2.10). A similar scenario has developed for Hispanic admissions, although post-Hopwood rates have never surpassed the 10.5 percent of 1996–97 (see figures 2.6 through 2.10). Asian Pacific Americans are the only minority group with a higher admissions rate in 2000–01 (6.3 percent) than in 1996–97 (5.3 percent) (see figures 2.6 and 2.10).

Declining minority admission rates at the UT School of Law and the University of Houston Law Center have been addressed, to some degree, by the other two law schools examined, Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law(TMSL) and Texas Tech University School of Law (TTU).[112] African American admission rates at TMSL, a historically black institution, have been higher every year, except for 1998–99, since the Hopwood decision. The same is true for TTU, although numbers are significantly below those of TMSL (see figures 2.6 through 2.10). Conversely, the rates of white admissions at TMSL from 1997–98 through 2000–01 have consistently been below that of 1996–97, while at TTU they have stayed above the final pre-Hopwood rate (see figures 2.6 through 2.10). The same generally holds true for Hispanic admission rates over this period, except that TMSL admitted a higher rate, often significantly higher, of Hispanic applicants than TTU did (see figures 2.6 through 2.10). Interestingly, although TMSL has had a higher admissions rate for Asian Pacific American applicants than TTU over this period, post-Hopwood rates have been below that of 1996–97, while at TTU they have generally been above (see figures 2.6 through 2.10).

Source: Compiled from data provided by the Texas Higher Education Coordination Board, Education Data Center.

As hinted at by the data, it is possible that minority law school applicants are being attracted to other than the premier law school in Texas by the abandonment of affirmative action in the state. Although minority admissions data from the three other law schools vary to some extent, the UT School of Law has admitted fewer minorities in every post-Hopwood year examined.[113]

Overall, minority enrollment at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), the premier public medical school in Texas, did not decline as sharply as the UT School of Law. The latest data available, 2000–01, reveal an overall decline of 1.5 percent from the final pre-Hopwood year of 1996–97. Respectively, 49.9 percent of enrollments were minority in 1996–97, compared with 48.4 percent in 2000–01. The highest percentage of minority enrollments in the five-year period, 54.0 percent, occurred in the 1997–98 academic year. Since then, minority enrollment has steadily declined, with the sharpest drop occurring between the 1998–99 and 1999–2000 academic years, when overall minority enrollment fell to 50.6 percent from 53.9 percent (see table 2.11). However, only in the 2000–01 academic year was there a lower percentage of minority enrollment than the final pre-Hopwood year of 1996–97. Nevertheless, the most recent data on minority enrollment reveal that 5.6 percent fewer enrolled students are minorities than in the 1997–98 academic year, the highpoint of this analysis.

Minority group enrollment in 2000–01 was 1.5 percent less than in the final pre-Hopwood year of 1996–97. The percentage of minority students only declined by 1.5 percent because fewer Asian Pacific American students enrolled in 2000–01 than in 1996–97. Conversely, the percentages of African Americans, Hispanics, and Native American/Alaska Natives[114] enrolled at UTMB during 2000–01 are below their respective numbers of 1996–97. For example, in 1996–97, 11.8 percent of enrollments were African American; by 2000–2001 African Americans were 9.4 percent of enrolled students. Furthermore, except for Hispanics, who accounted for higher percentages of enrollment in 1997–98 (24.0 percent) and 1998–99 (24.8 percent) than they did in 1996–97 (22.3 percent), the enrollment of these groups has steadily declined since 1996–97. The sharpest reduction has been in African American enrollments, from 11.8 percent in 1996–97 to 9.4 percent in 2000–01. The difference between Hispanic and African American enrollment during 1997–98 and 2000–01 is only 0.3 percent.[115] However, unlike Hispanic enrollment, African American enrollment steadily declined over the five-year period of analysis (see table 2.11).

Finally, overall white enrollment dipped by 4.3 percent between 1996–97 and 1997–98 and had rebounded by 2000–01. Specifically, in 2000–01 white enrollment was 49.1 percent, compared with 50.1 percent in the final pre-Hopwood year, 1996–97. The overall white enrollment was 1.0 percent less in 2000–01 than in 1996–97. Furthermore, after an initial dip in 1997–98 and 1998–99, white enrollment began rising in 1999–2000 while African American and Hispanic enrollments commenced a downward trend (see table 2.11). The only group to have experienced a steady increase in enrollment over the five-year period is Asian Pacific Americans. The general trend foretells a further reduction in minority enrollments in the coming years.[116]

Minority medical school enrollments only reveal a portion of the effect Hopwood has had in Texas. Admission rates are crucial for a fuller understanding of how minority medical school applicants have faired in Texas since Hopwood. Much like enrollment numbers, minority admission rates at the University of Texas Medical Branch, except those of Native American/Alaska Natives, have fluctuated over the five-year period, 1996–97 through 2000–01. For example, although African American admission rates were relatively stable from 1996–97 through 1999–2000, in 2000–01 they declined to 4.8 percent, a drop of 4.3 percent from 1997–98 and 4.1 percent from 1999–2000, respectively. Similarly, Hispanic admission rates stayed relatively stable from 1996–97 through 1998–99 but began declining in 1999–2000. Asian Pacific Americans admission rates also fluctuated but had returned to the same level (19.6 percent) in 2000–01 that they were in 1996–97, also 19.6 percent. Comparatively, white admission rates, although declining in the first post-Hopwood year of 1997–98 (41.1 percent), have rebounded since then with a highpoint of 56.9 percent in 1999–2000 (see figures 2.11 through 2.15).

The three other medical schools examined reveal varying admission rates for minority applicants over this five-year period. The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Medical School (UT-H), University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio School of Medicine (UT-SA), and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine (TTMC) had very low admission rates for African American applicants in the final pre-Hopwood year of 1996–97. These were, respectively, 1.1 percent, 1.1 percent, and 0.3 percent (see figure 2.11). In light of this, the possibility that more African American students would gain admission was very high. Still, rates did not increase significantly until 2000–01, the year in which there was a significant decline in African American admission rates at the University of Texas Medical Branch (see figures 2.12 through 2.15). Comparatively, however, only UT-H experienced a substantial increase, to 6.8 percent, relative to earlier years, while UT-SA had a rate (2.4 percent) barely above that of 1998–99 (2.3 percent), and TTMC (1.3 percent) was below those of 1998–99 (2.7 percent) and 1999–2000 (2.6 percent). Figures 2.11 through 2.15 also reveal fluctuating admission rates for other minority applicants to these medical schools over this five-year period.

White admission rates have remained relatively stable over this period, with UTMB (56.2 percent) and UT-SA (68.4 percent) showing an increase in 2000–01 compared with 1996–97, 51.3 and 58.4 percent, respectively. Conversely, UT-H and TTMC both display a decrease from 1996–97 (69.5 and 69.7 percent) to 2000–01 (63.3 and 66.7 percent). Still, relative to minority groups, white admission rates have stayed substantially strong at the four medical schools and the rates of decline at one school have been offset by increased rates at another (see figures 2.11 through 2.15). Furthermore, in 1999–2000 and 2000–01, admission rates to UTMB were roughly 5 percent higher than in 1996–97.

Source: Compiled from data provided by the Texas Higher Education Coordination Board, Education Data Center.

Outlawing race-conscious affirmative action programs in higher education in Texas had a negative impact on minority enrollment at the University of Texas-Austin. Between 1996, the year that the courts handed down the Hopwood decision, and 1997 minority enrollment at UT-Austin declined for both blacks and Hispanics. After HB 588 was enacted in 1998 and for several years thereafter, minority enrollment for both blacks and Hispanics continued to increase. By 2000, the number of black students being admitted to UT-Austin under the 10 percent plan reached 291, and 1,012 Hispanic students were admitted. As the program reached its fourth year, although the number of both black and Hispanic students declined, the decline was greatest among blacks. This decline may be an indication that initial efforts to encourage minority students to attend UT-Austin have now been minimized or eliminated. It is clear that efforts such as recruitment, financial and academic support, and multicultural programs attract and retain minorities.

Like undergraduate enrollments, minority enrollment at UT School of Law and the University of Texas Medical Branch has fluctuated to some extent since the Hopwood decision. However, unlike undergraduate programs, HB 588 does not bind professional programs in Texas. The result has been mixed for minority postgraduate enrollments. African American, Hispanic, and Native American/Alaska Native[117] enrollments in 2000–01 were almost exclusively less than those of 1996–97, although African American enrollments were the only ones to decline each year. Conversely, Asian Pacific Americans are the only minority group to have generally experienced an increase in enrollment over this period. Finally, minority admission rates over this period show a similar pattern, although Asian Pacific American admission rates do not show the general increase that enrollment rates show. Thus, while gaining at some schools, minority admission rates have predominantly declined at the premier Texas law and medical schools.

Florida’s State University System (SUS) consists of 11 public institutions: the University of Florida, Florida A&M University, Florida State University, University of South Florida, Florida Atlantic University, University of West Florida, University of Central Florida, Florida International University, University of North Florida, Florida Gulf Coast University, and New College of Florida (until recently part of the University of South Florida). The University of Florida (the SUS flagship campus), Florida State University, and University of South Florida are research institutions, while Florida A&M University is a historically black institution.[118]

All SUS institutions, with the exception of Florida Gulf Coast University and the New College of Florida, offer courses of study leading to a graduate degree. There are four law schools in SUS: the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law, Florida State University College of Law, Florida A&M Law School, and Florida International University College of Law.[119] The latter two were created by legislation, Senate Bill 68, four months after Governor Bush signed Executive Order 99-281 in November 1999, which banned the use of race in university admissions.[120] Senate Bill 68 was intended to increase the number of minority lawyers without the use of affirmative action. Factors considered in admissions decisions to the new law schools, which enrolled the first class of students in September 2002, included commitment to public service and whether the applicant is the first in his or her family to attend college.[121] SUS has three colleges of medicine: the University of Florida College of Medicine, University of South Florida College of Medicine, and Florida State University College of Medicine. The Florida legislature created the Florida State University College of Medicine only in June 2000, and the institution enrolled the first class of medical students in fall 2001.

This study focuses on the flagship institution, the University of Florida, and the selective Florida State University to determine access to high-status universities by minority first-time students. Affirmative action advocates are concerned that minority students are being shunted to lesser institutions and denied the education and social advantages associated with being graduates of selective schools. Comparable analysis on first-time graduate, law, and medical students again concentrates on the selective and key professional institutions. Thus, the University of Florida Graduate School, the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law, Florida State University College of Law, the University of Florida College of Medicine, and the University of South Florida College of Medicine are examined. Table 2.12 summarizes the above discussion.

The One Florida Equity in Education Initiative (Education Initiative) has two components (see figure 2.16). The first component consists of the three pathways to enrollment in SUS. The first pathway is the Talented 20 Program (T20 Program) and its mechanics are shown in table 2.13. The program replaced affirmative action and was designed to ensure that Executive Order 99-281 “does not negatively impact the diversity of the state universities.”[122] Implemented in fall 2000 (academic year 2000–01), the T20 Program guarantees admission to one of Florida’s 11 public institutions for any Florida resident who graduated in the top 20 percent of his or her public high school class and completed a prescribed 19-unit academic high school curriculum. The 19 academic units are: English language arts (4), mathematics (3), natural science (3), social science (3), foreign languages (2), and electives (4). In addition, Talented 20 (T20) high school graduates must take the SAT or ACT, but the results of the tests are not used to make admissions decisions, only to determine if students would need assistance with college-level work.[123] In addition, T20 high school graduates receive preference in need-based financial aid. Governor Bush had recommended a $20 million increase for the Florida Student Assistance Grant for 2000–01.[124]

Source: Compiled from e-mail from Monica Hayes, director, Office of Equity and Access, Florida Board of Education, July 9, 2002; Governor Bush’s Equity in Education Plan, November 1999, <http://www.myflorida.com/myflorida/governement/government initiative.one.florida/documents/educationPlan.edu>.

The second pathway to enrollment in SUS is through the use of traditional admissions criteria, such as high school grade point average and SAT or the American College Testing Assessment Test (ACT) scores. This pathway is available to all high school graduates. Each Florida institution has its own criteria, while the Board of Regents sets up the systemwide threshold requirements.

The third pathway is profile assessment, where a college admissions decision is arrived at through a weighing of weak high school academic performance, first-generation college participation, socioeconomic status, inner-city or rural residence, and special talents, such as athletic ability. Admission through profile assessment is capped at 10 percent, although in practice, less than 3 percent of first-time students are admitted through this pathway.[125]

The second component of the Education Initiative (see figure 2.16) emphasizes equalizing opportunities for low-performing schools. Access to educational opportunities in elementary and secondary schools has a direct bearing on access to higher education later on.[126] At the present time, by the very nature of the T20 Program and the compelling reality that Florida public high schools are not yet equal in resources and academic curricula, a proportion of the high school graduates eligible as T20 students are likely to be academically underprepared for college-level work. Thus, in the long term, it is only through the effective realization of this component, particularly the eight elements that pertain to middle and high school students, that this unfortunate situation may be ameliorated or, preferably, eliminated entirely. These elements may be described as coordinated outreach efforts[127] and include:

The independent One Florida Accountability Commission created by Governor Bush in May 2001 to review progress and make recommendations regarding the achievement of diversity issued its report in June 2002. In its conclusion, the One Florida Accountability Commission states “This report documents many improvements in our efforts at the state and local levels to expand opportunity and diversity among students succeeding at all levels of education in Florida.” It has developed 27 recommendations related to education.[129]

It is instructive to review the affirmative action policies that were in place prior to Executive Order 99-281. Race and ethnicity entered into university admissions at three levels. The first level, or alternative admission, allowed students who did not meet SUS’ minimum academic admissions criteria to be eligible for admission. The alternative admissions criteria included race, diversity, and artistic and athletic abilities. The second level allowed Florida’s most selective institutions, particularly the University of Florida and Florida State University, to admit minority and other students who did not meet their higher threshold academic criteria. The third level permitted the most selective universities to use race or ethnicity to choose among equally qualified students who met the SUS as well as more stringent institutional academic criteria.[130] The first level improved the chance for minority students to gain admission to SUS, while the second and third offered opportunities for admission to SUS’ selective institutions.

In the following sections, racial/ethnic application, admission, and enrollment data are examined for first-time students and first-time graduate, law, and medical students. The analysis covers 1999–2000, the year before the race ban, through 2001–02, the second year of the race ban and most current year for which data are available. In nearly all instances, the analysis begins at the SUS level to provide a systemwide perspective and then moves on to the institutional level. The overarching question that guides the assessment is: What effect does Executive Order 99-281 have on equal access to educational opportunity in public higher and professional education in Florida?

Assessment of the T20 Program’s effect on diversity and opportunity to participate in higher education begins with a baseline comparison of racial/ethnic distribution among high school graduates identified as T20 students with a comparable distribution of all Florida high school graduates. Figure 2.17 presents this information for the T20 students from the graduating classes of 1999–2000, 2000–01, and 2001–02, and for Florida high school graduates from the graduating class of 1999–2000.[131] It is striking that the proportion of each racial/ethnic group differed only slightly across the three classes of T20 students.[132]

In a perfectly equal society, the racial/ethnic composition of T20 students would approximate that of the high school graduates. Figure 2.17 shows that empirical reality is otherwise. The use of class ranks in university admissions decisions results in underrepresentation of blacks among T20 students, largely a consequence of their weaker high school academic performance relative to that of other groups. Specifically, while more than 20 percent of the 1999–2000 high school graduates were black, just 12.5 percent of the 1999–2000 T20 students were black. Thus, blacks are disadvantaged at the very beginning of the admissions process. Among the other groups, Hispanic students were slightly underrepresented while Asian Pacific Americans and whites were overrepresented among the 1999–2000 T20 high school graduates. Although present statistical analysis shows that Asian Pacific Americans are overrepresented, it is important to bear in mind that there is educational and economic diversity within the group. Some of the more recent Asian Pacific American immigrants to the United States are not as educationally and economically successful as others of their group who have a longer history in this country. Thus, the finding of overrepresentation may not apply to all the groups in the Asian Pacific American category. Where appropriate this caveat appeals throughout the discussion.

Figure 2.17
Racial/Ethnic Comparison of Talented 20 High School Graduates, Classes of 1999–2000 through 2001–02, and Florida High School Graduates, Class of 1999–2000

Source: Florida Board of Education, Division of Colleges and Universities, Research and Policy Analysis, “Comparison of Gender and Race/Ethnicity Mix of Talented 20 Students, 1999–2000, 2000–01 and 2001–02”; U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, “Table by State,” n.d.

Opportunity to participate in higher education may also be examined from the perspective of enrollment.[133] The illustrative case is the 2001–02 T20 first-time students, the most current group for which data are available. T20 first-time students made up 39.5 percent of all SUS first-time students. At the SUS level, figure 2.18 shows that among Asian Pacific American first-time students, 48.3 percent were T20 students, compared with 40.8 percent for Native Americans, 35.9 percent for Hispanics, and only 29.7 percent for blacks. Among white first-time students, T20 students made up 42.3 percent. Once again, because of their weaker high school academic performance relative to that of the other groups, the T20 Program did not serve blacks well.

Figure 2.18
Talented 20 First-Time Students as a Percentage of all First-Time Students by Race, State University System and University of Florida, 2001-02

Source: Florida Board of Education, Division of Colleges and Universities, Research and Policy Analysis, “State University System, Applicants, Admissions, and Enrollment, Talented 20 Students, 2001–02,” Aug. 13, 2002; “State University System, Florida Resident Applicants-Admitted-Enrolled Within Student Type/Race, Admissions Data, 2001–02,” Aug. 2, 2002.

At the University of Florida, the SUS flagship campus, T20 first-time students made up 61.5 percent of all first-time students. This higher figure, compared with 39.5 percent at SUS, is expectable since the University of Florida is highly selective. Figure 2.18 shows that among Asian Pacific American first-time students, 65.9 percent were T20 students, compared with 56.4 percent for Hispanics, 50.8 percent for blacks, and only 45 percent for Native Americans. Among whites, the comparable figure is 63 percent. The situation for blacks, compared with SUS, is relatively better, because the flagship institution likely enrolled the academically stronger T20 black first-time students. In fact, it is clear from figure 2.18 that this is the case for all other groups as well.

However, the findings on minorities for the University of Florida take on a different cast when the racial/ethnic composition of T20 first-time students at SUS is compared with that of the institution.[134] Figure 2.19 shows that among the minority T20 first-time students in SUS, Hispanics composed the largest group, 13.9 percent, followed by blacks at 11.9 percent, Asian Pacific Americans at 6.4 percent, and Native Americans at 0.4 percent.[135] At the University of Florida, Hispanics again formed the largest group among minority T20 first-time students but at 10.1 percent, followed by Asian Pacific Americans at 8.2 percent, and blacks at just 5.7 percent, and Native Americans at 0.2 percent. Hispanic, Native American, and especially black T20 students are underrepresented at the selective University of Florida relative to their presence in SUS and in comparison with their groups’ percentage among high school graduates.

Figure 2.19
Talented 20 First-Time Students by Race, State University System and University of Florida, 2001–02

Source: Compiled from Florida Board of Education, Division of Colleges and Universities, Research and Policy Analysis, “State University System Applicants, Admissions, and Enrollment, Talented 20 Students, 2001–02,” Aug. 13, 2002.

Summing up, blacks are starkly underrepresented among T20 high school students. Further, they have the smallest proportion of T20 first-time students. Hispanic, Native American, and especially black T20 students are underrepresented at the University of Florida.

Application and admissions data for first-time students are examined to determine if the three admissions pathways to SUS (see figure 2.16), in effect in 2000–01 and 2001–02, resulted in (1) a larger number of minority admitteesand if (2) there are differences in admission rates among different minority groups. Figure 2.20 shows that the number of admissions grew from 1999–2000 in the two years that the three pathways were used for admission to SUS, 11.2 percent in 2000–01 and 4.5 percent in 2001–02. The 11.2 percent growth is attributable to an increase in the number of admittees for every minority group. On the other hand, the 4.5 percent growth in 2001–02 resulted because only black and Hispanic admittees continued to grow, while the number of Asian Pacific American and Native American admittees declined. By 2001–02, the second year of the race ban, the number of admittees from every minority group is higher than in 1999–2000. Thus, the total number of minority admittees went from 13,095 in 1999–2000 to 14,550 and 15,208 in the next two years. On the other hand, the number of white admittees grew 9.7 percent in 2000–01 and declined by a few cases in 2001–02.

Source: Florida Board of Education, Division of Colleges and Universities, Research and Policy Analysis, “State University System Applicants, Admissions, and Enrollment, Talented 20 Students, 2001–02,” Aug. 13, 2002; “State University System, Florida Resident Applicants-Admitted-Enrolled Within Student Type/Race, Admissions Data, 1999–2000 through 2001–02,” Aug. 2, 2002.

As shown in figure 2.21, the overall minority admissions rate at the SUS level is slightly more than 75 percent, compared with more than 80 percent for whites. The year-to-year percentage change in admission rates is generally minimal for all groups. Thus, the three pathways did not alter the overall admissions rate of minorities to SUS. Analysis of admission rates among individual minority groups adds depth to the picture. Black applicants are admitted, relatively, at the lowest rate, between 69.8 and 72.2 percent, while Asian Pacific American applicants are admitted at the highest, between 87 and 88 percent, followed by Hispanic applicants, between 80 and 81 percent, and Native American applicants, between 76.2 and 80.8 percent. Once again, blacks do not fare as well relative to the other groups.

It is notable that among minorities, between 56.7 and 58.2 percent of applicants actually become enrolled in SUS in the period under consideration, contrasted with between 62.4 and 65.4 percent for whites (see figure 2.22). Hispanics and Americans showed a slightly declining trend, while Asian Pacific Americans and blacks held steady across the years. Relative to other groups, a lower percentage of black and Native American applicants eventually enrolled in SUS.

Figure 2.21
State University System Admission Rates for First-Time Students, 1999–2000 through 2001–02

Source: Florida Board of Education, Division of Colleges and Universities, Research and Policy Analysis, “State University System, Florida Resident Applicants-Admitted-Enrolled Within Student Type/Race, Admissions Data, 1999–2000 through 2001–02,” Aug. 2, 2002.

Figure 2.22
Percentage of Applicants Who Enrolled as First-Time Students in the State University System by Race, 1999–2000 through 2001–02

Summing up, the three pathways increased the number of admittees to SUS for all groups. Blacks evidenced the lowest admission rates, and a lower percentage of black and Native American applicants eventually become enrolled in SUS.

In this section, racial/ethnic information of first-time students is examined at the SUS level to provide a systemwide overview. Comparable data are examined for the two selective institutions, University of Florida and Florida State University, to determine the accessibility of minority students to prestigious institutions.

Panel A of table 2.14 presents racial/ethnic information in SUS for first-time students enrolled in 1999–2000, 2000–01, and 2001–02. Actual total first-time student enrollment in SUS showed a 10.8 percent increase in 2000–01 and just an increase of 1.8 percent in 2001–02. In fall 1999 (academic year 1999–2000), SUS enrolled 26,679 first-time students. Of these, minority first-time students made up 36.9 percent, while white first-time students constituted 62.2 percent. Among the minorities, black and Hispanic first-time students each made up 15.8 percent, followed by Asian Pacific American, 5 percent, and Native American, 0.4 percent.

In the first and second years of the implementation of the three pathways, the number of minorities increased, from 9,848 in 1999–2000 to 10,925 in 2000–01 and 11,096 in 2001–02, exhibiting growth rates of 10.9 and 1.6 percent, respectively. This reflects the overall pattern noted earlier. Despite these absolute increases, the proportion of minorities as a group did not change, staying around 37 percent.[136] This is the result of a comparable increase in white first-time students, 10.9 percent in 2000–01 and 1.3 percent in 2001–02.

Thus, while the numbers of minority and white first-time students increased in 2000–01 and 2001–02 and SUS was able to accommodate the growth, the present analysis shows that the three pathways did not increase the proportion of minority first-time students. In this regard, the combined pathways did not perform any better than affirmative action programs in place in 1999–2000. In fact, minority first-time students were already underrepresented in SUS in the pre-race ban year. Minorities stood at 36.9 percent, while the comparable figure was 39.4 percent for the 1999–2000 high school class.[137]

Among the individual minority groups, Hispanic first-time students increased at similar rates in the two years after Executive Order 99-281, between 4.5 and 4.6 percent. Black first-time students registered a 12.7 percent rate increase in 2000–01 and a very minor rate increase the following year. Finally, Asian Pacific American and Native American first-time students showed promising absolute increases in 2000–01 but declines in 2001–02.

Table 2.14
First-Time Students by Race, State University System and University, 1999–2000 though 2001–02

Note: (1) The “all minorities” category consists of Asian Pacific Americans, blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans. “Other” refers to a small number of individuals who are charged in-state tuition even though they are nonresidents. Florida determines resident status by whether a person qualifies for in-state tuition and fees. (2) ** indicates that percentage change is not calculated because the base numbers are small.

Source: Compiled from Florida Board of Education, Division of Colleges and Universities, Research and Policy Analysis, “State University System, Florida Resident Applicants-Admitted-Enrolled Within Student Type/Race, Admissions Data, 1999–2000 through 2001–02,” Aug. 2, 2002.

Overall, the proportion of each minority group in the first-time student population differed minimally between the pre-race ban and post-race ban years. This finding is particularly disheartening for blacks, who made up between 15.8 and 16 percent in SUS but 21.2 percent in the 1999–2000 high school class.[138] Conversely, the same comparison shows that Hispanics were adequately represented in SUS. The Hispanic group includes Cuban Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Rican Americans, and other groups from Central and South America. In addition to diversity in national origin, there are educational and economic differences. With respect to years of education and mean earnings, Cuban Americans rank near the top when compared with other Hispanic groups. Sixty-three percent of the Cuban American population resides in Florida.[139] Enrollment data provided by the Florida Board of Education do not break down the Hispanic population. However, it is reasonable to assume that the Cuban American population in SUS is not insignificant. Thus, the finding of adequate representation may be a result of Cuban American influence, that is, it may not apply to all the Hispanic groups. Where appropriate, this caveat applies throughout this discussion. The situation of Cuban American influence is not as relevant in California and Texas with their smaller Cuban American population.

Cognizant that affirmative action has not brought nearly enough minorities into higher education, it is alarming that its replacement in Florida, the Talented 20 Program, operating along with traditional admissions criteria and profile assessment, is unable to do any better. This strongly argues for going beyond the existing version of the percentage plan. In this connection, it is significant that the University of Florida plans to go beyond the Talented 20 Program to improve diversity.[140] The university announced in spring 2002 that it will automatically admit the top 5 percent of each high school graduating class.

Panel B of table 2.14 presents racial/ethnic information on first-time students enrolled at the University of Florida. In 2000–01, the first year of the three pathways, every group showed large absolute numerical increases, bringing the total number of first-time students to 6,649, a 13.1 percent increase over 1999–2000. The substantial increase in 2000–01 resulted in part from the university’s basketball team having reached the finals of the spring 2000 NCAA basketball championship. However, by the second year, the effect had largely dissipated.[141] Thus, in 2001–02, every group had decreased, thereby lowering the number of enrolled first-time students to 5,952, a 10.5 percent decrease. As a group, minorities showed a similar pattern, except that the percentage increase in academic year 2000–01 was 29.1 percent and the percentage decline in 2001–02 was nearly as large, 28.4 percent. Thus, in 1999–2000, 2000–01, and 2001–02, minority enrollment went from 1,674 to 2,161 to 1,548; correspondingly, as a group, minorities constituted 28.5, 32.5, and 26 percent at the flagship. It is disturbing that these proportions are lower than comparable ones at SUS. Equally disturbing, they are lower than those for the 1999–2000 high school class, which stood at 39.4 percent. Clearly, minorities are underrepresented at the flagship campus.

Among individual minority groups (excluding the small number of Native Americans), black first-time students suffered the greatest percentage decrease in 2001–02, 46.4 percent, followed by Hispanics, 17.5 percent. White students also declined, but just by 2 percent. By the second year of the race ban, black and Hispanic students made up 6.9 and 11.1 percent, respectively, of total enrollment compared with higher proportions in the previous two years. More importantly, not once did the proportions of blacks and Hispanics come close to comparable figures for the 1999–2000 high school class, 21.2 and 15.1 percent, respectively. The concern expressed by affirmative action advocates that minority students are being shut out of selective institutions is borne out to a large extent in the case of these two groups.

Panel C of table 2.14 presents racial/ethnic information for first-time students enrolled at Florida State University. Total first-time students enrollment showed a 15.7 percent increase in 2000–01, raising the total to 5,030 from 4,347 in 1999–2000. By 2001–02, total enrollment fell to 4,816, or 4.3 percent, largely the result of a decline in white first-time students. On the other hand, total minority enrollment increased 21.2 percent in 2000–01 and 1.4 percent in 2001–02. Correspondingly, minority enrollment went from 23.1 percent of all first-time students in 1999–2000 to 24.2 and 25.6 percent in the next two academic years. Alarmingly, the proportions of minorities at Florida State University are lower than those for SUS and the University of Florida for the period under consideration.

Among individual minority groups, the number of Asian Pacific American first-time students fell to 135 in 2001–02 from 161 in the previous year, while black and Hispanic enrollment grew over both time periods. By the second year of the race ban, black and Hispanic students made up 11.8 and 10.7 percent, respectively, of total enrollment, compared with slightly lower proportions in the previous two years. Still, these percentages are much lower than comparable figures for the 1999–2000 high school class. This finding clearly reinforces the need to modify the current percentage plan.[142]

Summing up, in SUS, the proportion of each minority group differed minimally between the pre-race ban and post-race ban years. The proportion of blacks in SUS, the University of Florida, and Florida State University are consistently lower than those of the 1999–2000 high school class. This underrepresentation already prevails in the pre-race ban year. In SUS, Hispanics are adequately represented, but not at the more prestigious University of Florida and Florida State University.

As stated earlier, no provision was made to replace affirmative action in admission to graduate and law and medical professional schools, although legislation was enacted to create two new law schools to increase minority presence. This section reviews admission and enrollment data for first-time graduate, first-time law, and first-time medical students at the SUS and institutional levels.

Graduate school admission rates for 1999–2000 through 2001–02 at the SUS level are reviewed to see if differences existed among groups. Figure 2.23 shows that overall admission rates for first-time minority graduate students hovered between 61.9 and 62.7 percent during the period under discussion, 1999–2000 through 2001–02. White admission rates, in contrast, showed small increases, from 74.6 percent in 1999–2000 to 77.3 percent in 2001–02, respectively. In the post-race ban years, admission rates increased slightly for Hispanics, more dramatically for Native Americans, held steady for Asian Pacific Americans, and decreased somewhat for blacks. The more salient points are that over this period, admission rates for blacks are almost always lower than other minority groups and admission rates for whites are substantively and consistently higher than those for minorities.

Figure 2.23
State University System Graduate School Admissions Rate by Race, 1999–2000 through 2001–02

At SUS, first-time minority graduate enrollment showed 1.1 percent growth in 2000–01, to 3,268 from 3,234 in 1999–2000, as shown in table 2.15. This was the result of small increases in the number of Asian Pacific Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. Total minority graduate enrollment grew 18.9 percent between 2000–01 and 2001–02. In this instance, almost every minority group showed sizeable increase. By the second year of the race ban, minorities made up 30.6 percent of all graduate students, a result of significant increase in Asian Pacific Americans, blacks, and particularly Hispanics. Comparable figures for 1999–2000 and 2000–01 were 27.8 and 28.3 percent, respectively.

At the University of Florida, the percentage of first-time minority graduate students decreased slightly, from 19.7 percent in 1999–2000 to 18.3 percent in 2001–02, despite a small absolute increase in 2001–02. It is discouraging that the overall percentage of minorities in the flagship is substantively lower than in SUS. Among the individual minority groups, Asian Pacific American and Hispanic enrollment fluctuated while blacks increased by a handful of students. Compared with their presence in SUS, blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented in the University of Florida.

Table 2.15
First-Time Graduate Students by Race, State University System and University, 1999–2000 through 2001–02

Note: (1) The “all minorities” category consists of Asian Pacific Americans, blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans. (2) ** indicates that percentage change is not calculated because the base numbers are small.

Summing up, black first-time graduate students are admitted at a lower rate relative to other groups. Although overall minority enrollment grew and at a higher rate in 2001–02, blacks and Hispanics remain underrepresented in the University of Florida relative to their enrollment in SUS. Not unexpectedly, the overall proportion of minorities at the flagship campus is much lower than that in SUS.

This section begins with a review of law school admission rates in SUS from 1999–2000 through 2001–02. As shown in figure 2.24, SUS law school admission rates for all groups increased in 2000–01 but fell in 2001–02 to below the level in 1999–2000. For minorities as a group, admission rates ranged between 45.2 and 52.9 percent contrasted with higher white admission rates (see figure 2.24). Among the minorities, Asian Pacific Americans were admitted at the highest rate, followed by Hispanics, and then blacks.[143]

Figure 2.24
State University System Law School Admissions Rate by Race, 1999–2000 through 2001–02

Note: Admission rates were not compiled for Native Americans because the numbers were very small.

Panel A of table 2.16 displays systemwide data on enrollment for first-time law students. First-time law students increased 6.7 percent in the first year that the use of race was banned, to 604 from 566 in 1999–2000, but declined 9.6 percent in the second year, to 546. Total minority enrollment broadly reflected this trend, except that the percentage increase in 2000–01 was minimal, just 1.9 percent, while the percentage decline the following year was 17.3 percent.

In fall 1999, Hispanic law students, the largest of the minority groups, composed 14 percent of all first-time law students, followed by black law students at 9.9 percent, while Asian Pacific American and Native American law students made up 3 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively. As a group, minority law students were 28.1 percent, or 159, of the total, while white law students made up 71.7 percent. In the first year of the race ban, 2000–01, minority law students fell to 26.8 percent even though the total number actually went up by a few cases, to 162.[144] While Asian Pacific Americans and blacks displayed some year-to-year percentage increases, the comparable figure for Hispanics fell slightly. In contrast, white enrollment grew 8.4 percent.

Table 2.16
First-Time Law Students by Race, State University System and University, 1999–2000 through 2001–02

In 2001–02, the proportion of minorities declined further, to 24.5 percent, again a result of year-to-year decreases in black and Hispanic enrollment. At the same time, white enrollment also fell by 9.1 percent. By the second year of the race ban, total minority enrollment was lower than what it was in 1999–2000 with black, Hispanic, and Native American enrollment reflecting the same pattern. This is particularly disheartening since the Florida bar is currently about 2 percent black and just 6 percent Hispanic.[145]

Panels B and C of table 2.16 present first-time law student enrollment data at the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law and the Florida State University College of Law. In the Fredric G. Levin College of Law, minority law students decreased steadily, from 33.8 percent in 1999–2000 to 28 and 22.9 percent in 2000–01 and 2001–02, respectively. In 2000–01, a 24.2 percent drop in Hispanic enrollment caused the decline, while in 2001–02, 26.7 and 28 percent declines in black and Hispanic enrollment, respectively, had that effect.

At the Florida State University College of Law, the smaller of the two law schools, enrollment fluctuated. The proportion of minority students went from 18.9 percent in 1999–2000 to 24.5 percent in 2000–01. However, by 2001–02, the absolute number of minorities had fallen to 46 even though the proportion increased to 28.4 percent.[146]

Summing up, total first-time minority law students in SUS evidenced a small absolute increase in 2000–01, a larger absolute decrease in 2001–02, and a steady decline in percentage of all first-time law students. Total minority enrollment at the University of Florida Frederic G. Levin College of Law fell steadily and fluctuated at the Florida State University College of Law.

As in the sections on graduate and law students, this section begins with a review of medical school admission rates. Medical school admission rates at the SUS level for 1999–2000 through 2001–02 are presented in figure 2.25.[147] Admission rates for all minority groups are clearly higher in 2000–01 and 2001–02 than in 1999–2000. This said, it remains true that the overall admission rates for minorities are lower than those for whites, between 16.3 to 19 percent and 23.1 and 25.1 percent, respectively. Asian Pacific American admission rates easily surpassed those of blacks and Hispanics for the period under consideration. The latter two groups evidenced fairly similar rates.[148]

Figure 2.25
State University System Medical School Admissions Rate by Race, 1999–2000 through 2001–02

Note: Admission rates were not compiled for Native Americans because the numbers were very small.

Source: Compiled from Florida Board of Education, Division of Colleges and Universities, Research and Policy Analysis, “State University System Florida Resident Applicants-Admitted-Enrolled Within Student Type/Race, Admissions Data, 1999–2000 and 2000–01,” Aug. 13, 2002; “State University System Florida Resident Applicants-Admitted-Enrolled Within Student Type/Race, Admissions Data, 2001–02,” Sept. 17, 2002.

Panel A of table 2.17 displays systemwide data on first-time medical student enrollment. First-time medical students increased 4.5 percent in the first year of the race ban, from 198 in 1999–2000 to 207, and 28 percent in the second, to 265. Total minority enrollment also reflected increases, 11.9 and 21.3 percent in 2000–01 and 2001–02, respectively.

In fall 1999, Asian Pacific American medical students, the largest of the minority groups, composed 18.7 percent of all first-time medical students, followed by Hispanic students at 7.6 percent, black students at 6.6 percent, and Native American students at 1 percent. Minority medical students made up 33.8 percent, or 67, while white medical students constituted 64.1 percent. In the first year of the race ban, 2000–01, the proportion of minority medical students increased to 36.2 percent, or 75. With the exception of Asian Pacific American students, every minority group grew slightly. The increase in white enrollment was similarly small.

In 2001–02, total minority enrollment again showed absolute increase, from 75 to 91 because of growth in Asian Pacific American, black, and Hispanic first-time medical students. But because white enrollment grew at a relatively higher rate, 28 percent, the proportion of minorities fell to 34.3 percent in the second year of the race ban.

Table 2.17
First-Time Medical Students by Race, State University System and University, 1999–2000 through 2001–02

Panels B and C of table 2.17 display medical student enrollment at the University of Florida College of Medicine and the University of South Florida College of Medicine. In the University of Florida College of Medicine, minorities increased from 40.2 percent in 1999–2000 to 46.8 in 2000–01, but fell to 40.4 percent in 2001–02, although there is a small absolute increase each year. It is encouraging that the percentage of minorities at the established University of Florida College of Medicine is higher than in SUS.

In the University of South Florida College of Medicine, the smaller of the two medical schools, the total number of first-time medical students increased by a few cases between 1999–2000 and 2001–02, from 91 to 96 to 99. The total number of minority medical students enrolled in 1999–2000 was 24, and in the two years that race was banned minority enrollment was 23 and 27.

Summing up, total first-time minority medical students in SUS evidenced small absolute increases but the proportions fluctuated. The University of Florida College of Medicine has a higher percentage of minorities than SUS.

Does the Talented 20 Program foster the goal of equal access to educational opportunity required by civil rights laws? This analysis finds that the use of class ranks in admissions decisions particularly hurts blacks. For instance, a smaller percentage of blacks are identified as T20 high school graduates. Thus, they are disadvantaged at the very beginning of the admissions process. Not surprisingly, blacks have the lowest proportion of T20 first-time students. Finally, with the exception of Asian Pacific Americans, Hispanic, Native American, and especially black T20 students are underrepresented at the flagship campus, the University of Florida.

More generally, how has the race ban affected diversity among first-time students? The three pathways to SUS increased minority and nonminority first-time students, but failed to change the proportions of the different minority groups in SUS. Further, blacks are admitted at a lower rate to SUS. More poignantly, in SUS, the University of Florida, and Florida State University, the percentages of black first-time students are consistently lower than those of the 1999–2000 high school class. This underrepresentation prevails even in the pre-race ban year of 1999–2000.

Minority graduate enrollment increased substantively in SUS in 2001–02 as a result of increases in the number of Asian, black, and Hispanic students. However, black graduate admission rates are almost always lower than those of other minority groups. Further, black and Hispanic graduate students are underrepresented at the University of Florida. In the law schools, the number of first-time minority law students fluctuated in SUS and declined steadily in the University of Florida Frederic G. Levin College of Law. Furthermore, black and Hispanic law students were admitted at lower rates when compared with other groups. In the medical schools, first-time minority medical students grew slightly. And, as in the case of the law schools, medical school admission rates are lower for blacks and Hispanics.

[1] U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Toward an Understanding of Percentage Plans in Higher Education: Are They Effective Substitutes for Affirmative Action? April 2000 (hereafter cited as USCCR, Toward an Understanding of Percentage Plans).

[2] USCCR, Toward an Understanding of Percentage Plans, pp. 6–7.

[3] Ibid., pp. 7–8, citing Rios et al. v. Regents of Univ. Cal., No. C 99-0525 SI (N.D. Cal. Mar. 24, 1998).

[4] The University of California also includes campuses at Merced and San Francisco. The Merced campus is new and will open in fall 2004. The San Francisco campus is a graduate health sciences university. See table 2.1 and University of California, Merced, “A University for Our Future,” <www.ucmerced.edu/about_merced/>; University of California, San Francisco, “Academics,” <www.ucsf.edu/academics/index.html>.

[5] The other tiers include California State University, which provides undergraduate and graduate education through the master’s degree, emphasizing “applied” fields and teacher education; and the California community colleges, which provide academic and vocational instruction, remedial instruction, English as a second language courses, community service courses, and workforce training services. The Master Plan also establishes admissions pools for these schools. The California State University is to select from among the top one-third of the high school graduating class. California community colleges admit any student capable of benefiting from instruction. University of California, Office of the President, “Major Features of the California Master Plan for Higher Education,” <www.ucop.edu/acadinit/mastplan/mpsummary.htm>.

[6] Joint Committee for Review of the Master Plan for Higher Education, “California Faces . . . California’s Future: Education for Citizenship in a Multicultural Democracy,” Final Report of the Joint Committee for Review of the Master Plan for Higher Education, March 1989, p. 6 (hereafter cited as Joint Committee for Review, “California Faces”).

[7] University of California, Office of Strategic Communications, “Facts About the University of California: Comprehensive Review,” November 2001.

[8] Saul Geiser, University of California, Office of the President, Student Academic Services, Redefining UC’s Eligibility Pool to Include a Percentage of Students From Each High School, March 1998, p. 11.

[9] University of California, Board of Regents, “The History of the California Master Plan for Higher Education,” <www.sunsite.berkeley.edu/UCHistory/archives_exhibits/masterplan/post1960.html>.

[10] See ibid.; Joint Committee for Review, “California Faces,” pp. 1–4.

[11] Joint Committee to Develop a Master Plan for Education, The California Master Plan for Education, August 2002.

[12] See, e.g., Joint Committee for Review, “California Faces,” pp. 1–4; University of California, Office of the President, “Policy on Future Admissions, Employment, and Contracting—Resolution Rescinding SP-1 and SP-2, Approved May 16, 2001,” <www.ucop.edu/regents/policies/6031.html>.

[13] Note that a policy described below as the “4 percent plan” has been added as a selection criteria. See University of California, Office of Strategic Communications, “Facts About the University of California.” The required preparatory courses for admission have been the same since 1994 and include, for example, one year of study in history, cultures, and geography, two years of laboratory science in different disciplines, and two years of elective courses. As amended March 19, 1999, and effective for freshmen in fall 2003, the requirements will include one year of study in the visual and performing arts and will reduce the college preparatory elective courses from two years to one year. The computation of the academic grade point average uses all grades achieved in the required courses and assigns extra points to grades received in two approved honors-level courses completed in the 10th grade. University of California, Office of the President, “Policy on Changes in Freshman Admissions Requirements, Approved March 19, 1999,” <www.ucop.edu/regents/policies/6161.html>.

[14] Joint Committee to Develop a Master Plan for Education, The California Master Plan for Education, August 2000.

[15] Joint Committee for Review, “California Faces,” pp. 4–5. For example, in 1989 UC campuses were reported to admit 6 percent of freshmen on the basis of individual talent or special criteria, which could include “ethnic minorities whom counselors say have the potential to succeed in college even though they started too late in high school to meet all admissions requirements.” David Smollar, “Colleges Wooing Minority Students Younger and Younger,” Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1989, Metro, p. 1. See also Kenneth Rogers, “Don’t Lower the Bar—Elevate the Students,” Los Angeles Times, Mar. 10, 1995, p. B7.

[16] See University of California, Office of the President, “Policy on Undergraduate Admissions by Exception, Issued by the Office of the President, July 1996,” <www.ucop.edu/regents/policies/6160.html>.

[17] See University of California, Office of the President, “Policy on Future Admissions, Employment, and Contracting.”

[18] See University of California, Office of the President, “Policy on Comprehensive Review in Undergraduate Admissions, Approved November 15, 2001,” <www.ucop.edu/regents/policies/compreview.html>.

[19] See e.g., Coalition for Economic Equity, et al. v. Pete Wilson, Governor of California, et al., 122 F.3d 692 (1997),cert. denied 522 U.S. 963 (1997);University of California, Office of the President, “Policy on Future Admissions, Employment, and Contracting”; University of California, Santa Cruz, “Implementation of Proposition 209: How It Impacts UC’s Employment Practices,” p. 1, <www2.ucsc.edu/eeo-aa/Post209.html>.

[20] University of California, Office of the President, “Comprehensive Review,” <www.ucop.edu/news/compre/welcome.html>.

[21] See University of California, Office of the President, “Establishment of UC Freshman Eligibility in the Local Context, Approved March 19, 1999,” <www.ucop.edu/regents/policies/6173.html>; and University of California, Office of the President, “Eligibility in the Local Context,” <www.ucop.edu/news/cr/welcome.html>. Note that a further modification to the 4 percent plan has been approved for admission of the class entering in the fall of 2003. In addition to the top 4 percent of each California high school’s graduates, the proposed “Dual Admissions” program will allow an additional 8.5 percent to be given admission somewhere in the UC system, provided the students successfully complete first-year and sophomore requirements at a community college. See Roya Aziz, “U. California System Creates New Admissions Plan,” California Aggie, Sept. 26, 2000; Tanya Schevitz, “UC Widens Chance of Gaining Admission; Policy Approved to Aid Minorities, Disadvantaged,” San Francisco Chronicle,July 20, 2001.

[22] In fact, the 4 percent plan was not expected to displace students eligible under the 12.5 percent plan because fewer than the 12.5 percent met other UC eligibility requirements. See Geiser, Redefining UC’s Eligibility Pool, pp. 11–12.

[23] Ibid., p. 7.

[24] See University of California, Office of the President, “Policy on Comprehensive Review in Undergraduate Admissions.”

[25] University of California, Office of Strategic Communications, “Facts About the University of California.”

[26] Ibid.

[27] Pacific Legal Foundation, “Fifth Anniversary of 209’s Passage: A.G. Gets Failing Grade for Prop. 209 Enforcement; PLF Calls for End to Racially Divisive Programs,” press release, Nov. 5, 2001.

[28] University of California, Office of the President, Student Academic Services, “University of California Application, Admissions and Enrollment of California Resident Freshmen for Fall 1995 through 2001,” “REG004/005, Jan02 f01/flowfrc9501” (hereafter cited as University of California undergraduate data).

[29] Percentages are calculated from University of California undergraduate data, not shown here. Note that the race ban resulted in a large increase in the number of students with “unknown” race, particularly in the fall of 1998. A couple of exceptions occurred in the trends described above, but would likely prove to be true if the race/ethnicity were known for all students. For example, Santa Cruz had only 45 percent whites in the 1998–99 school year, but likely had a sizeable proportion of whites among the 19 percent with unknown race. Elsewhere, university officials determined that the vast majority who did not report racial information were white or Asian. See Rebecca Trounson and Kenneth R. Weiss, “California and the West; Numbers of Blacks, Latinos Admitted to UC System Rise,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 4, 2001, p. A-3.

[30] The broad category of “Asian Pacific Americans” may mask other underrepresented groups. For example, East Indians/Pakistanis and Filipino Americans have been included with Asian Americans in this category, although the University of California undergraduate data track them separately. UC’s race bans did not diminish the proportional presence of East Indian/Pakistani or Filipino American enrollees. (University of California undergraduate data, not shown.)

[31] University of California undergraduate data (not shown).

[32] Ibid.

[33] U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, “Common Core of Data,” 2000–2001 (hereafter cited as NCES, “Common Core of Data,” 2000–01). The most recent data available are for 2000–2001, but include diploma recipients from the previous year.

[34] University of California undergraduate data (not shown).

[35] NCES, “Common Core of Data,” 2000–2001.

[36] University of California undergraduate data (not shown).

[37] See, e.g., Piper Fogg, “U. of California, for First Time, Admits More Minority Students Than It Did Under Affirmative Action,” Chronicle of Higher Education, Apr. 8, 2002, <www.chronicle.com/daily/2002/04/ 2003040801n.htm>. Note that these reports are based on preliminary data and the numbers and percentages sometimes differ from those given here for earlier years. See University of California, Office of the President, “Student/Workforce Data,” <www.ucop.edu/news/studstaff.html>.

[38] University of California, Office of the President, “Policy on Future Admissions, Employment, and Contracting.”

[39] Amy Wallace, “Los Angeles Times Interview; Richard Atkinson; Maintaining a Diverse UC in a Post Affirmative-Action World,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 27, 1996, p. M-3.

[40] Bill Stall, “Wilson Steps up Affirmative Action Attack,” Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1995, p. A-3. Exceptions were under the “Admissions by Exception” policy that provided for students with course deficiencies due to the unavailability of courses in their high schools. One UC regent stated, in 1996, that 16 percent of African Americans, 1 percent of Asians, and 2 percent of whites were admitted to Berkeley under this policy. Ruben Navarrette Jr., “The State/Affirmative Action; Will Outreach Programs Be the Next Target?” Los Angeles Times, July 28, 1996, p. M-6.

[41] “Opening the Door Wider,” Los Angeles Times, Jan. 20, 1986, Metro, part 2, p. 4.

[42] Anthony Perry, “Asians Make Big Gains at UCSD,” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 1987, Metro, part 2, p. 1; David Smollar, “Colleges Wooing Minority Students Younger and Younger,” Los Angeles Times, Metro, part 2, p. 1.

[43] “Opening the Door Wider”; Ralph Frammolino, “UC Plans to Boost Aid to Minorities,” Los Angeles Times,p. A-3.

[44] “Southern California Voices/A Forum for Community Issues,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 30, 1996, Metro, part B, p. 7. The Young Black Scholars program was described by Virginia Hathaway, interim director of the program in Los Angeles.

[45] See “Opening the Door Wider,” p. 4; Perry, “Asians Make Big Gains at UCSD.”

[46] Dave Lesher, “California and the West; Davis Rejects Gender, Racial Hiring Efforts,” Los Angeles Times, July 29, 1999, p. A-3.

[47] Hi-Voltage Wire Works Inc. et al. v. City of San Jose et al., 24 Cal. 4th 537 (2000). See, e.g., Maura Dolan, “State Justices Deal New Setback to Affirmative Action,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 1, 2000, p. A-1.

[48] See Ward Connerly v. State Personnel Board et al., and California Business Council for Equal Opportunity et al., 2001 CA (Cal. Ct. App., 3rd App. Dist.) C032042, p. 33.

[49] Amy Wallace, “New UC Chief to Seek Input on ‘Downsizing’ Bureaucracy,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 3, 1995, p. A-3; Wallace, “Los Angeles Times Interview; Richard Atkinson; Maintaining a Diverse UC in a Post Affirmative-Action World”; Kenneth R. Weiss, “UC Proposes Push to Ready Disadvantaged for College,” Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1997, p. A-1.

[50] Wallace, “Los Angeles Times Interview; Richard Atkinson; Maintaining a Diverse UC in a Post Affirmative-Action World.”

[51] Weiss, “UC Proposes Push to Ready Disadvantaged for College”; Amy Wallace, “UC Regents Panel OKs Minority Outreach Plan,” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 1997, p. A-3.

[52] Weiss, “UC Proposes Push to Ready Disadvantaged for College.”

[53] Ibid.; Amy Wallace, “UC Regents Panel OKs Minority Outreach Plan.”

[54] Kenneth R. Weiss, “Los Angeles Times Interview; Alex Saragoza,” Los Angeles Times, July 16, 2000, p. M-3.

[55] Wallace, “New UC Chief to Seek Input on ‘Downsizing’ Bureaucracy”; Weiss, “UC Proposes Push to Ready Disadvantaged for College.”

[56] Wallace, “UC Regents Panel OKs Minority Outreach Plan.”

[57] Ibid.

[58] Weiss, “UC Proposes Push to Ready Disadvantaged for College.”

[59] Randal C. Archibold, “Young College Try; UCI Pilot Program Aims to Raise Minority Students’ Junior High Grades, University Admission Rates,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 22, 1997, Metro, part B, p. 1; “Orange County Perspective, Helping Poor Kids Beat the Odds,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 14, 1997, Metro, part B, p. 6.

[60] Weiss, “UC Proposes Push to Ready Disadvantaged for College.”

[61] Martha Groves, “Nurturing Seeds of College Success; Concerned About Disadvantaged Students’ Poor Preparation for Admission to Top Universities, UC San Diego Is Starting Its Own School to Help Them Get Ready,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 18, 1999, Metro, part B, p. 2.

[62] Jenifer Ragland, “Steering Latinos Toward College,” Los Angeles Times, Ventura County Edition, May 18, 2001, California section, part 2, p. 1.

[63] Herma Hill Kaybym and Michael Sharlot, “Affirmative Action Was a Success,” Los Angeles Times, Aug. 29, 1997, Metro, part B, p. 9; Antonio Olivo, “Doctor Shortage Severe in Poor Areas,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 19, 1999, p. A-1.

[64] Olivo, “Doctor Shortage Severe in Poor Areas.”

[65] Ibid.

[66] Hopwood v. State of Texas, 78 F.3d 932 (5th Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 518 U.S. 1033 (1996). USCCR, Toward an Understanding of Percentage Plans; Texas Higher Education Coordination Board, “Report on the Effects of Hopwood on Minority Applications, Offers, and Enrollment at Public Institutions of Higher Education in Texas,” 1998, <http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/cfbin/ArchFetch.cfm?DocID=16&Format=HTML> (hereafter cited as Texas Higher Education Coordination Board, “Effects of Hopwood”). Affirmative action plans in higher education were also struck down in the states of Louisiana and Mississippi as they fall under the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals jurisdiction. It must be noted that a Texas A&M University associate dean views the initial Hopwood decision as more limited in scope and attributes its extension to scholarships and recruiting to former Texas Attorney General Dan Morales. See “ ‘Hopwood’ Ruling Could Roll Back Texas A&M’s Minority Progress,” February 1999, <http://www.tamu.edu/univrel/aggiedaily/news/stories/99/022599-12.html> for this discussion.

[67] Texas Higher Education Coordination Board, “Effects of Hopwood.”

[68] Gary M. Lavergne and Bruce Walker, Implementation and Results of HB 588 at the University of Texas at Austin, Report No. 3, p. 2. The Classic Model relied heavily on “SAT scores . . . high school class rank, and a required high school curriculum.” It also incorporated affirmative action and considered the “extent to which students exceeded high school curriculum requirements.” The University of Texas used the Classic Model during the years immediately preceding Hopwood. Affirmative action addressing higher education in Texas has been guided by three successive statewide planning documents. From 1983 to 1988, the Texas Educational Opportunity Plan for Higher Education was based on negotiations between Texas and the federal government resulting from the Adams v. Richardsonlawsuit. Although Texas was not party to the suit, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights determined that Texas had segregated African Americans in higher education and that vestiges of that dual system continued in 1979. Between 1989 and 1994, Texas addressed discrimination in higher education based on the Texas Plan, which it voluntarily developed and implemented. Finally, Access and Equity 2000 was developed and implemented in 1994, two years prior to the Hopwood decision. SeeTexas Higher Education Coordination Board, “Higher Education in Texas: 1998 Status Report,” 1998, <http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/reports/HTML/0089/statbod.htm>.

[69] The Texas Commission on a Representative Student Body, “Report of the Texas Commission on a Representative Student Body,” Oct. 15, 1998, <http://www.uhsa.uh.edu/TCRSB/report.html>. See footnote 3 for a historical discussion of Texas’ higher education affirmative action efforts.

[70] The percentage plan is discussed in detail below.

[71] Flagship undergraduate Texas institutions are the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. The four public institutions conferring law degrees in Texas are the University of Texas School of Law, University of Houston Law Center, Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law, and Texas Tech University School of Law. Furthermore, although the University of Texas System includes six health institutions, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Education Data Center only provided the Commission with data on the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston School of Medicine, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Medical School, and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio School of Medicine. Data were not available for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, or the University of Texas Health Center at Tyler.

[72] The report is Implementation and Results of the Texas Automatic Admissions Law HB 588, by Gary M. Lavergne and Bruce Walker.

[73] American Council of Education, Center for Policy Analysis, “Percentage Plans for College Admissions,” ACE Issue Brief, January 2001, <http://www.acenet.edu/resources/reports/percentage-plans.pdf> (hereafter cited as ACE, “Percentage Plans”).

[74] Tex. Educ. Code Ann. § 51.803(a) (1997); ACE, “Percentage Plans.”

[75] Tex. Educ. Code Ann. §§ 51.802–51.803(a) (1997); USCCR, Understanding Percentage Plans; ACE, “Percentage Plans.”

[76] Tex. Educ. Code Ann. § 51.805(b) (1997); Bruce Walker, Implementation and Results of HB 588, Report 1: The University of Texas at Austin, The University of Texas Admissions Research at Austin, November 1998, <http://www.utexas.edu/student/research/reports/admissions/HB588.html> (hereafter cited as Walker, Implementation and Results).

[77] Tex. Educ. Code Ann. § 51.803(b) (1997).

[78] The University of Texas at Austin is part of the 15-member (nine academic universities and six health institutions) University of Texas System.

[79] Walker, Implementation and Results.

[80] Tex. Educ. Code Ann. § 51.805 (1997).

[81]Id.

[82] Texas A&M University is part of the nine-member Texas A&M University System.

[83] Texas A&M University, Office of Admissions, “Freshman Admission—2002,” November 2002, <http://www.tamu.edu/admissions/Undergrad/ubook01/a_fresh.htm>.

[84] Walker, ; Wayne J. Camara, “Pursuing Campus Diversity After Affirmative Action: An Assessment of Class Rank Plans for College Admissions,” Association of American Colleges and Universities, Diversity Digest, Spring/Summer 2000, <http://www.diversityweb.org/Digest/Sp.Sm00/affirmative.html>. Enrollment in the architecture program is determined by the department faculty, who consider more than class rank, while fine arts faculty base enrollment in music and dance on the results of a student’s audition.

[85] Walker, Implementation and Results.

[86] The University of Texas System, Special Regental Committee on Minorities and Women, “A Time for Fulfillment: The 21st Century Commitment to Equal Opportunity in the University of Texas System,” July 2000, p. 2. Recruitment efforts are universal, not solely directed at minority students.

[87] Ibid.

[88] Ibid.

[89] Linda K. Wertheimer, “A&M Tries New Diversity Tactic: University Wants to Target Top 20% at 250 Low-Ranking Schools,” Dallas Morning News, Feb. 10, 2002, p. 1A; Lydia Lum, “Texas A&M Admission Proposal Draws Controversy,” Black Issues in Higher Education, vol. 18 (January 2002), p. 10.

[90] “Texas A&M Shelves Pilot Enrollment Plan,” Black Issues in Higher Education, vol. 19 (March 2002), p. 14.

[91] Ibid.; Diana Abouali, “Affirmative Action’s Uncertain Future: Proponents of Race-Conscious Admissions Firm on Belief, But Less Confident on Whether Policy Could Survive a Supreme Court Review,” Black Issues in Higher Education, vol. 19 (March 2002), p. 13; Ron Nissimov, “Detouring Toward Diversity, Schools Pushing Limits of Hopwood Ruling,” Houston Chronicle, May 5, 2002, p. 1A.

[92] Nissimov, “Detouring Toward Diversity.”

[93] Texas Tech University, “Agency Strategic Plan, Fiscal Years 2001–2005,” June 2001, p. 24.

[94] Ibid.

[95] Gary M. Lavergne and Bruce Walker, Implementation and Results of the Texas Automatic Admissions Law HB 588, Report No. 4, p. 2.

[96] Ibid.

[97] Ibid.

[98] Ibid., p. 4.

[99] Ibid.

[100] Jim Yardley, “The 10 Percent Solution,” New York Times (Education Life), Apr. 14, 2002, p. 29.

[101] Ibid.

[102] Ibid.

[103] USCCR, Understanding Percentage Plans, p. 3.

[104] John F. Kain and Daniel M. O’Brien, “Hopwoodand the Top 10 Percent Law: How They Have Affected the College Enrollment Decisions of Texas High School Graduates” (paper presented at the National Bureau of Economic Research Meeting on Higher Education, Boston, MA, Nov. 9, 2001), p. 5.

[105] Yardley, “The 10 Percent Solution,” p. 29.

[106] Texas A&M University, “How the HopwoodDecision Has Affected Texas Universities,” Aggie Daily, p. 1, <http://www.tamu.edu/univrel/aggiedaily/news/stories/archive/021398-1.html>.

[107] Texas Higher Education Coordination Board, “Effects of Hopwood”; the Texas Commission on a Representative Student Body, “Report of the Texas Commission on a Representative Student Body,” Oct. 15, 1998, <http://www.uhsa.uh.edu/TCRSB/report.html>.

[108] Note that for the academic years 1999–2000 and 2000–01 the number of students listed as Unknown/Not Reported are, respectively, 78 (5.7 percent) and 99 (7.0 percent). Although these numbers are substantial, statistically, the probability that all or most of them are members of a particular minority group is highly, if not wholly, improbable. However, being that we will never know the racial or ethnic makeup of these individuals the analysis must state this fact.

[109] It must be noted that since the number of Native American/Alaska Native enrolled students is comparatively small, any change in percentages is also comparatively minor.

[110] In admissions data, UT-Austin specifies Mexican American as opposed to Hispanic and Asian American as opposed to Asian/Pacific Islander. The university chose to count Hispanics other than Mexican Americans in the “Other” category, since the “Other” category is predominately, and, at least for 1998 enrollments, exclusively non-Mexican-American Hispanic.

[111] The increase and decline in admissions numbers for African Americans at the UT-H (1996–97 through 1998–99) and Hispanics at UT-SA (1996–97 and 1997–98) are due to the small sample sizes (n). For African Americans at UT-H the sample sizes (n) are, respectively, 3 (1996–97),13 (1997–98), and 5 (1998–99). For Hispanics at UT-SA the sample sizes (n) are, respectively, 37 (1996–97) and 20 (1997–98).

[112] Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law, “About Thurgood Marshall School of Law and Texas Southern University,” 2002, <http://www.tsu.edu/law/aboutus/aboutus.htm>. TMSL is a historically black college established in 1947 and originally known as Texas State University for Negroes.

[113] The University of Texas School of Law, Texas Tech University School of Law, and University of Houston Law School all report modifications of their admissions procedures, placing more weight on factors other than grade point average and scores on the primary law school admissions test, the LSAT. The University of Texas listed 19 “other” factors; Texas Tech University listed 15. The University of Houston noted that “other” factors now compose 70 percent of its admissions index, as compared with 30 percent devoted to the LSAT and grade point average, a reversal of earlier weighting. These three law schools also report an expansion of recruitment activities, including alumni contact with prospective students, direct faculty contact both on and off campus, active involvement by student groups, private scholarship development, and efforts to work with undergraduate institutions to develop and encourage participation in pre-law curriculums. See Texas Higher Education Coordination Board, “Effects of Hopwood,” appendix F.

[114] As with the UT School of Law data, it must be noted that since the number of Native American/Alaska Native enrolled students is comparatively small, any change in percentages is also comparatively minor.

[115] This is the difference in the respective numbers of African American and Hispanic enrollments in 1996–97 compared with 2000–01 (i.e., African American 2.4 percent and Hispanic 2.1 percent) and for both groups in those academic years (i.e., 2.4 percent less 2.1 percent).

[116] This premise will naturally require future data analysis.

[117] Again, it must be noted that since the number of Native American/Alaska Native enrolled students is comparatively small, any change in percentages is also comparatively minor.

[118] Florida Board of Education, Division of Colleges & Universities, “Florida’s Public University,” n.d., <http://www.borfl.org/univ_info/unitour.asp>; New College of Florida, “About NFC,” n.d., <http://www.ncf.edu/Documents/FactSheet.html>; “Governor Bush’s Equity in Education Plan,” <http://www.myflorida.com/myflorida/governement/governmentinitiative.one.florida/documents/educationPlan.edu>, November 1999 (hereafter cited as Equity in Education Plan); University of Florida, “UF Facts and Rankings,” n.d., <http://www.ufl.edu/facts.html>.

[119] Note that Florida A&M University once housed a small law school at the Tallahassee campus. In 1968, Florida closed the law school and merged it with the mostly new law school at Florida State University. See Lewin Tamar, “Florida Tests Diversity at 2 Law Schools,” New York Times, Feb. 15, 2002, p. A16 (hereafter cited as Tamar, “Florida Tests Diversity”).

[120] Fla Stat. Ch. 1004.39–1004.40 (2002); USCCR, Toward an Understanding of Percentage Plans, p. 1. Note that the ban affected state contracting as well. MyFlorida.com, “Education,” <http://www.oneflorida.org/myflorida/government/governorinitiatives/one_florida/education.html>.

[121] See Tamar, “Florida Tests Diversity,” p. A16. Note that currently, the Florida bar is about 2 percent black and 6 percent Hispanic.

[122] Monica Hayes, Florida director, Office of Equity and Access, Florida Board of Education, e-mail to Sock-Foon MacDougall, social scientist, USCCR, July 9, 2002 (hereafter cited as Hayes e-mail, July 9, 2002).

[123] Hayes e-mail, July 9, 2002. See also American Council on American Issue Brief, “Percentage Plans for College Admissions,” January 2001, <http://www.acenet.edu/resources/reports/percentage-plans.pdf>. Note that the SAT test was originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, was later renamed the Scholastic Assessment Test, and now is simply called the SAT. See FairTest: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, “The SAT: Questions and Answers,” n.d., <http://www.fairtest.org/facts/satfact.htm>; the College Board, “History of the SAT,” n.d., <http://www.collegeboard.com/abut/newsat/history.html>.

[124] Hayes, telephone interview, Aug. 26, 2002.

[125] Hayes, e-mail, Aug. 12, 2002; George Perkins, director, research and policy analysis, Florida Board of Education, telephone interview, Aug. 9, 2002.

[126] Gerald Torres and Penda D. Hair, “The Texas Test Case: Integrating America’s Colleges,” Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 4, 200, p. B20.

[127] Hayes, telephone interview, Sept. 26, 2002.

[128] Equity in Education Plan, pp. 7–10.

[129] MyFlorida.com, “Executive Summary,” n.d., <http://www.myflorida.com/myflorida/government/otherinfo/accountability.html>.

[130] Equity in Education Plan.

[131] The 1999–2000 high school class is the most current class for which graduation data are available. See U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics, Common Core of Data, “Table by State” (Aug. 5, 2002) (hereafter cited as NCES, “Table by State”). Note that the 1999–2000 T20 students would enroll in fall 2000, the 2000-01 cohort in fall 2001, and the 2001–02 cohort in fall 2003.

[132] These are Florida residents since only state residents are eligible to participate in the Talented 20 Program. Admission and enrollment data presented in subsequent figures and tables focus on Florida residents only.

[133] Analysis not shown in this report shows that for both SUS and University of Florida, at least 86.7 percent of the T20 applicants are admitted. The high rate of admission applied to all groups of applicants. The enrollment rates are considerably lower and for minorities are 65.6 percent at the SUS level and 63.3 percent at the University of Florida.

[134] Racial/ethnic composition among all first-time students at SUS and the University of Florida is discussed later.

[135] The numbers do not add to 100 percent because a small number of first-time students either did not report their racial/ethnic status or were classified as “other.” This applies to the University of Florida as well.

[136] Enrollment data for 2002–2003 showed the same conclusion. Vincent Kiernan, “Minority Enrollment in Florida Remains Unchanged,” Chronicle for Higher Education, Sept. 20, 2002, p. A25.

[137] See NCES, “Table by State.”

[138] See ibid.

[139] Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research, University of Albany, “The New Latinos,” n.d., <http://www.hccwpa.org/Census_and Data/HCC_New_Lation2.htm>; U.S. Census Bureau, “Quick Tables-Florida, n.d.,<http://factfinder.census/_lang= en_vt_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_QTP3_geo_id=4000US12. htm>, and U.S. Census Bureau, “Quick Tables-United States, n.d., <http://factfinder.census/_lang=en_vt_ name=DEC_ 2000_SF1_U_ QTP3_ geo_id=1000US12.htm>.

[140] Bill Kolb, director of admission, telephone interview, Aug. 9, 2002. See also “U. of Florida to Open Doors to Top 5% of Each High-School Graduating Class,” Chronicle of Higher Education, Mar. 22, 2002, <http://chronicle.com/weekly/v48/i28a02203.htm>. Note that the University of Florida has outreach programs that target students in failing schools. The Alliance Program, for example, has collaborative relationships with five urban schools, with a sixth to be added shortly. Admissions office staff visit the schools and work with the guidance counselors. In addition, the provost’s office administers a scholarship program that awards five scholarships to each of the Alliance schools. The university’s summer program serves Alliance students who must meet eligibility requirements including, single-parent household, low-income family, and first-generation college participation. Kolb interview, Sept. 17, 2002.

[141] Bill Kolb, director of admission, telephone interview, Aug. 9, 2002.

[142] Like the University of Florida, Florida State also operates a summer program, the CARE Summer Bridge Program. The university currently has a College Reach-Out Program (CROP) that is part of a statewide initiative funded by the state. CROP targets students between the grades of sixth and 12th and who meet the state’s educational and economic criteria. Finally, the federal TRIO program (discussed in detail in chap. 5) is an important piece of Florida State University’s outreach efforts. See Florida State University, “The Summer Bridge Program,” n.d., <http://fsu.edu/~care/sbp.html>; <http://fsu.edu/~care/crop.html>; and <http://fsu.edu/~care/SSP.html>.

[143] Admission rates are not compiled for Native Americans because their numbers are so small.

[144] This is due to a higher rate of increase in white enrollment, 8.4 percent.

[145] Tamar, “Florida Tests Diversity,” p. A16.

[146] This is a result of a 28.8 percent decrease in white enrollment. Note that analysis of each individual minority group is not attempted because the numbers are small.

[147] Note that SUS admissions data for 2001–02 include the new Florida State University College of Medicine, which admitted the first class of students in fall 2001.

[148] Admission rates are not compiled for Native Americans because the numbers are so small.

Table 2.2 Timeline for Events Affecting University of California Admissions

1960	The UC Board of Regents and the California State Board of Education approved the California Master Plan for Higher Education, which was implemented through legislation. The plan established the principle of universal access and choice and specified college admissions pools such that UC was to select from among California residents in the top one-eighth (12.5 percent) of high school graduating classes. Applicants would be offered a place somewhere in the UC system, though not necessarily at the campus or in the major of first choice.
July 20, 1995	UC Board of Regents approved an admissions policy prohibiting all schools in the UC system from using “race, religion, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin as criteria for admission to the university or to any program of study.” The policy included a statement that the university would admit no less than 50 percent and no more than 75 percent of applicants on academic criteria alone.
July 1996	UC’s Office of the President issued a policy on undergraduate admissions, “admission by exception,” which stated that starting with the spring 1998 quarter, up to 6 percent of newly enrolled freshmen, including up to 4 percent drawn from disadvantaged students, would be admitted by exception to the university’s eligibility requirements. Such students must demonstrate a reasonable potential for success at the university.
Nov. 6, 1996	California voters approved Proposition 209, prohibiting any state body from using race, ethnicity, or gender as criteria for hiring or admission.
Aug. 28, 1997	California’s Proposition 209 went into effect.
Fall 1997	The university’s race ban took effect for beginning classes of graduate students.
Nov. 3, 1997	U.S. Supreme Court denied further appeal of California’s Proposition 209.
Spring 1998	Current Admissions by Exception program implemented.
Fall 1998	The university’s race ban took effect for beginning classes of undergraduates.
Mar. 18, 1999	4 percent plan proposed to take effect starting in fall 2001.
May 16, 2001	UC Board of Regents rescinded its policy banning racial preferences, although the voter-approved Proposition 209 still prohibited them. New admissions policies would take effect in fall 2002.
July 19, 2001	UC Board of Regents approved a “dual admissions” program to take effect for applicants for fall 2003 admission. In addition to the top 4 percent of each California high school’s graduates, the “dual admissions” program will allow an additional 8.5 percent to be given admission somewhere in the UC system, provided the students successfully complete first-year and sophomore requirements at a community college. The transfer path will be streamlined.
Fall 2001	The 4 percent plan took effect, guaranteeing admission to some UC campus; Irvine campus guaranteed admission to top 4 percent at its campus.
Nov. 15, 2001	UC Board of Regents approved a comprehensive review process to evaluate and admit applicants to UC campuses, beginning fall 2002, using multiple measures of achievement and promise and considering the context in which each student has demonstrated academic accomplishment.
May 7, 2002	A new draft Master Plan for Education in California was released for comment and redrafting, anticipating that a final plan will be adopted before the end of September 2002.
Fall 2002	First students admitted to UC under the comprehensive review process will be enrolled.
Sept. 9. 2002	The California legislature’s Joint Committee to Develop a Master Plan for Education released its final report for a new California Master Plan for Education, addressing pre-kindergarten through adult education, and began pursuing the changes in legislation and regulations needed to implement its recommendations.
Fall 2003	The “dual admissions” plan will take effect.

Table 2.3 Admissions Policies in Effect for University of California Undergraduates by School Year

	School Year:
Admissions Policy:	1995-1996	1996-1997	1997-1998	1998-1999	1999-2000	2000-2001	2001-2002	2002-2003
12.5 percent plan
Admission by exception
Affirmative action
University race ban
State race ban (Proposition 209)
50 to 75 percent on academic merit
4 percent plan
Comprehensive review

Table 2.7 Texas Public Institutions

Institutions in Texas A&M University System
Prairie View A&M University	Tarleton State University
Texas A&M International University	Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University at Galveston	Texas A&M University-Commerce
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi	Texas A&M University-Kingsville
Texas A&M University-Texarkana	West Texas A&M University

Institutions in Texas State University System
Angelo State University	Lamar University
Sam Houston State University	Southwest Texas State University
Sul Ross State University	Sul Ross State University-Rio Grande College

Institutions in the University of Texas System
University of Texas at Arlington	University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Dallas	University of Texas at Brownsville
University of Texas at El Paso	University of Texas-Pan American
University of Texas of the Permian Basin	University of Texas at San Antonio
University of Texas at Tyler	University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Medical School
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston School of Medicine	Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio School of Medicine

Institutions in the University of Houston System
University of Houston	University of Houston-Clear Lake
University of Houston-Downtown	University of Houston-Victoria

Non-System Institutions
Midwestern State University	Stephen F. Austin State University
Texas Southern University	Texas Southern University
Texas Tech University	Texas Woman's University
University of North Texas

Institutions to Which the 10 Percent Plan Applies
All Texas public institutions offering undergraduate programs

Institutions in This Analysis
University of Texas-Austin	University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Medical School
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston School of Medicine	Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio School of Medicine

Reason for Inclusion in the Study
Flagship status
Selective status
Key professional institutions

Source: Compiled from various sources.

Table 2.8 UT-Austin Undergraduate Admissions Statistics by Ethnicity
	Applied	Admitted	Percent of applied admitted	Enrolled
1996
White	10,584	6,571	62.0	4,159
Black	809	461	57.0	266
Hispanic	2,492	1,617	64.9	932

1999
White	10,406	6,802	65.4	4,084
Black	957	452	47.2	251
Hispanic	2,615	1,498	57.3	861

2001
White	11,164	6,720	60.2	3,684
Black	999	380	38.0	205
Hispanic	2,998	1,513	50.5	832
Source: University of Texas at Austin, Office of Admissions, Implementation and Results of HB 588, Report 2; Gary M. Lavergne and Bruce Walker, Implementation and Results of the Texas Automatic Admissions Law HB 588, Report 4, p. 4.

Table 2.9 Top 10 Percent of Students Admitted to UT-Austin by Ethnicity
	White	Black	Hispanic
1997 – before percent plan	2,262	118	613
1998 – 1st year of plan	2,561	143	734
1999 – 2nd year of plan	2,753	268	911
2000 – 3rd year of plan	3,182	291	1,020
2001 – 4th year of plan	3,213	245	1,012
Source: Gary M. Lavergne and Bruce Walker, Implementation and Results of the Texas Automatic Admissions Law HB 588, Report 4, p. 4.

Table 2.10 Student Enrollment by Race/Ethnicity, UT School of Law, 1996–97 through 2000–01
	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-00	2000-01
Total enrollment	1,513	1,415	1,377	1,380	1,406

White	1,115	1,089	1,043	1,040	1,014
	73.7%	77.0%	75.7%	75.4%	72.1%

Black	97	67	40	17	33
	6.4%	4.7%	2.9%	1.2%	2.3%

Hispanic	179	145	122	114	126
	11.8%	10.2%	8.9%	8.3%	9.0%

Asian Pacific American	88	94	90	83	73
	5.8%	6.6%	6.5%	6.0%	5.2%

Native American/AK Native	9	7	10	8	10
	0.6%	0.5%	0.7%	0.6%	0.7%

Unknown/Not reported	0	0	36	78	99
	--	--	2.6%	5.7%	7.0%

All minorities	373	313	262	222	242
	24.7%	22.1%	19.0%	16.1%	17.2%
Source: The University of Texas School of Law, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Education Data Center.

Table 2.11 Student Enrollment by Race/Ethnicity, UT Medical Branch at Galveston School of Medicine,1996–97 through 2000–01
	1996–97	1997–98	1998–99	1999–2000	2000–01
Total enrollment	821	829	820	810	823

White	411	380	375	390	404
	50.1%	45.8%	45.7%	48.1%	49.1%

Black	97	99	94	79	77
	11.8%	11.9%	11.5%	9.8%	9.4%

Hispanic	183	199	203	177	166
	22.3%	24.0%	24.8%	21.9%	20.2%

Asian Pacific American	124	147	145	152	154
	15.1%	17.7%	17.7%	18.8%	18.7%

Native American/AK Native	6	3	0	2	1
	0.7%	0.4%	--	0.2%	0.1%

Unknown/Not reported	0	0	1	9	17
	--	--	0.1%	1.1%	2.1%

All minorities	410	448	442	410	398
	49.9%	54.0%	53.9%	50.6%	48.4%
Source: The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston School of Medicine, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Education Data Center.

Table 2.12
The Florida State University System

Institutions in the Florida State University System
lorida A&M University					University of Florida
Florida Atlantic University					University of North Florida
Florida Gulf Coast University					Florida State University
Florida International University					University of South Florida
New College of Florida					University of West Florida
University of Central Florida

Institutions to Which the Talented 20 Program Applies
All the institutions in the Florida State University System

Institutions in This Analysis
University of Florida, including the Graduate School, Frederic G. Levin
College of Law, College of Medicine
Florida State University, including the College of Law
University of South Florida College of Medicine

Reason for Inclusion in the Study
Flagship status
Selective status
Key professional institutions
Source: Compiled from various sources.