Incredibly, the Board of Regents at Texas A&M University seems determined to “gerrymander” its definition of diversity in admissions, despite the Hopwood decision and clear evidence that preferential race-based admissions and lowered standards are the wrong approaches. What else can explain the recent approval of a plan to expand the top 10% automatic admission rule to the top 20% in schools with a high percentage of minority students? The Wall Street Journal wonders, as do I, how far Texas is willing to lower academic standards “to produce the desired color scheme. If 20% doesn’t work, will we go to 30%?” Or maybe we will follow the proposed plan at the University of California and drop all SAT requirements for admissions! Thankfully, a number of national civil rights leaders have followed the lead of the Young Conservatives of Texas in opposition to the plan and have asked Attorney General John Cornyn to rule against it. Where are our state political and business leaders? As I have argued before (April 2000), admissions parity for economically and socially disadvantaged students will come only when these students are much better prepared for higher education by our public school system. When will we learn?
