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Texas Top 10% College Admissions Rule to Change
If you don't live in Texas and aren't a constitutional law scholar, this revelation may not affect you. But for anyone in either of those categories, the recent proposal by Texas governor Greg Abbott to scrap the "Top 10%" law is a big deal.
Let me explain.
Since 1997, Texas has had a law in place providing automatic college admissions to the top ten percent of each high school graduating class. Texas' high schools are deeply racially segregated, so the theory behind the law was the promotion of racial diversity in Texas' public university system.
As usual, laws that promote preferential treatment of one group over another tend to generate controversy. The landmark court case Fisher v. University of Texas has been appealed all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. That suit was filed by Abigail Fisher, a white student denied admission by the University of Texas, who blames the "reverse-racism" of Texas' system.
Fisher is not alone. The blowback against the 10% rule comes largely from a contingent that feels it discriminates against white, higher-achieving students. The university system dislikes the program because of the ways in which it restricts the universities from building and selecting their own student pools.
Whether Abbot is pandering to voting demographics or hoping to implement meaningful structural change remains to be seen. The issue is forever complicated by the difficulty in tracking the success of affirmative-action type programs, particularly against a backdrop of opposition to "preferential" admissions.
Across the country, states have different approaches to affirmative action. In states where it has been mail order ambien cr banned, many universities have circumvented the prohibition through alternative programs which offer preferential treatment to certain student populations. The dismantling of the "Top 10%" may have the most direct effects on Texans, but its abolition could send a powerful message to universities nationwide.
Labels: Texas Top 10 College Admissions Rule to Change
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