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The Supreme Court rules in favor of desegregation, which outlawed school segregation.
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President Kennedy coins the term “affirmative action” when he signs an Executive Order mandating government contractors to treat all employees equal regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin (NCSL, 2014, para. 2).
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Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination based on race, sex, color, and national origin.
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To boost minority’ employee numbers, President Johnson signs an Executive Order mandating government contractor’s use affirmative action when hiring (NCSL, 2014, para. 3).
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According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (2014), “in institutions of higher education, affirmative action refers to admission policies that provide equal access to education for those groups that have been historically excluded or underrepresented, such as women and minorities” (para. 1). Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, colleges began implementing affirmative action policies in their admissions to increase the amount of minority students (Synnott, 2014, p. 37).
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In 1992, four white students filed a suit against the University of Texas (UT) when denied admission to the law school claiming they had been discriminated against because of their race as their academic credentials should have gained them spots in the class (Webster, 2007, p. 3).
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the four students. This decision was made on the basis UT had contradicted the Fourteenth Amendment as it was to provide equal protection to all, instead of their admission policy to base admission on race. The court also urged schools to look at other ways to create diversity besides just race (Webster, 2007, p. 3).
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One plan, presented by MALDEF attorney Al Kauffman, had 15 factors listed which admissions should consider along with academic credentials. The other plan, presented by UT professor David Montejano, was to admit any student who finished in the top ten percent of their high school into any Texas flagship institution. Both plans were combined and formatted into one plan to allow for racial and economic diversity while still being simple and fair (Webster, 2007, p. 5).
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Attorney General of Texas, Dan Morales, prohibits all higher education institutions in Texas from considering race in admissions and financial aid. This not only led to a dramatic drop in minority enrollment the following year, but also a drop in minorities applying to colleges (Webster, 2007, p. 4).
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The Texas Top Ten Percent Plan has two sections. The first stated all higher education institutions in Texas must admit a student if they are in the top ten percent of their graduating class. The second section stated 18 socioeconomic factors can be used to determine admission for the remaining available spots (Webster, 2007, p. 5).
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California follows suit with their own percent plan, allowing automatic admission to students who finished in the top four percent of their class to the University of California system. At the same time, Florida also introduced a percent plan, automatically admitting the top 20 percent of a class to the Florida State University System (Horn & Flores, 2003, p. 17-19). Race-neutral admissions plans grew to affect students in the three most populous states in the United States.
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In Gratz v. Bollinger, the court ruled it was unconstitutional for the University of Michigan to award race-based points to undergraduate applicants. In Grutter v. Bollinger, the court ruled in favor of the University of Michigan’s law school using race as a factor as it was a need to increase diversity (Maramba et. al., 2015, p.753). This allowed universities to consider race as a factor if it was needed to further increase diversity. UT Austin begins using race as a factor in its admissions.
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The policy was revised with another requirement in addition to the initial ones that only students in the top ten percent who had completed the recommended or advanced high school curriculum program (or the portion available to them), would qualify for automatic admissions (Flores & Horn, 2015, p. 5-6).
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Abigail Fisher, a white applicant who was denied admission to UT, filed a lawsuit claiming she was discriminated against based on race, which went against Equal Protection under the 14th Amendment (Maramba et. al., 2015, p.753). It would not be until 2013 when the U.S. Supreme Court would make a ruling.
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Cap would not exceed 75 percent of the class. The remaining 25 percent would be divided out, ten percent for out-of-state residents and 15 percent toward students based on other factors (Maramba et. al., 2015, p.755). This is partly because UT Austin was already maxing out their class with top ten percent students alone and found this prevented out-of-states and other deserving students a spot. This is also the latest revision to the policy today.
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The Supreme Court ruled it go back to the appeals court to look at again, however, the court also pointed out that higher education institutions had to demonstrate the race-neutral alternatives were not effective enough to show increased diversity before considering race for admissions (Maramba et. al., 2015, p.753). This would lead to the court ruling in UT’s favor as they showed race consideration was necessary to increase diversity, following the ruling made in the case of Grutter (2003).
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Research has been conducted to find the effectiveness of this plan and the impact it has on higher education. This has allowed universities to gain a more diverse population in terms of social class and geographical location. However, while there has been an increase in diversity and in minority students in Texas colleges, the largest reason is the changing demography in the population in Texas, especially in the Hispanic population, not because of the Percent Plan (Flores & Horn, 2015, p. 11).
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Texas’ Senate Higher Education Chairman Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, presented a bill to further reduce the percentage of the ten percent allotted to the freshman class from 75 percent to 30 percent (Watkins, 2017, para. 4). This bill did not receive enough votes to pass. Senator Seliger expects this bill to come up again in the 2019 legislative session (Watkins, 2017, para. 12).
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An alternative plan would be to drop the top percentage automatically admitted as well as the amount of spots this group is allocated in a university’s incoming freshmen class. This allows the university to use consider other factors to better broaden the diversity scope of their campus.
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Attached Part One of the references for this timeline.
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Attached is Part Two of the References for this timeline.
