On Tues., Mar. 18, in the Hopwood v. Texas decision, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously ruled the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Texas Law School at Austin unconstitutional.
The four white plaintiffs claimed that, in spite of higher grades and LSAT scores, they were turned down by the admissions committee in favor of minority applicants. The court rejected the law school's arguments that its admissions decisions were just ified by the program's contribution toward a diverse student body.
"We hold that the University of Texas School of Law may not use race as a factor in deciding which applicants to admit," the court ruled. The decision applies to admissions at public institutions in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Dr. Robert M. Ber dahl, president of U.T. at Austin, said, "The Hopwood decision has serious implications for Texas, including the virtual resegregation of higher education."
Michael P. McDonald, president of the Center for Individual Rights (CIR), the law firm which represented the Hopwood plaintiffs, expects the decision to have a national impact. Although the court's decision applies only to public institutions, he expl ained that the Supreme Court ruled that private universities receiving federal funds must be held to the same standards as public institutions with regard to discrimination. According to McDonald, virtually every college receives some type of federal assi stance. "Other college and university administrators will probably change their policies," he said, "unless they want to be sued."
The Court decision continued a trend to limit the power of affirmative action programs. In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled that race could be used as a factor in admissions decisions in order to achieve on-campus diversity (Bakke v. California Board of Regents), but recent court decisions have been increasingly hostile toward the programs.
Yale Associate Dean Shannon Salinas, director of the Chicano Cultural Center, suggested that many universities will follow the University of California at Berkeley. Although Berkeley has been forced to move away from a strict affirmative action progra m, it has pledged to carefully review applications in order to maintain diversity in the student body.
Yale's response to the ruling has been negative. Richard Shaw, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale, worried about the future of affirmative action nationally and at Yale. "I am personally very concerned," Shaw said. "My opinion is that it's a bad decision, and I hope it gets appealed," he said. Nonetheless, Shaw said that the movement for affirmative action programs in admissions will not ultimately be impeded. "I have to believe in the educational community-that we're much more thoughtful than t hat."
Tiffany McKinney, TD '98, co-chairwoman of the Yale Black Political Forum, said, "If this society were color-blind, there would be no need for [affirmative action], but this is not this is not the case. We have to ensure that our institutions stay div erse."
Vanita Gupta, ES '96, ex-moderator of the Asian-American Student Association, said, "You can't fight racism if you deny its existence. To cut such programs...is going to have extremely dire effects on who's going to be getting which jobs and occupying which positions of power."
Political science professor Rogers Smith upholds the constitutionality of affirmative action programs: "The American Constitution embodies the view that the government is empowered to provide special assistance to some groups if it will benefit all gr oups in the long run." However, the effects of the ruling depend on the actions of political figures and administrators. "If [administrators] are averse to affirmative action or wary of litigation, this gives them a reason to abandon it now," he said. On Tues., Mar. 26, the U.T. system resumed its admission process without considering race or ethnicity. However, the Texas Attorney General's office has decided to appeal the case and request a stay of the court order until the appeal is heard.
Smith mentioned long-term studies by UC-Berkeley and the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, which indicate that affirmative action has not resulted in any major loss of opportunity for whites. Student performance has improved where such policies are in place, he said.
Shaw said, "Affirmative action has a long history and has made a significant difference for populations which have been historically underrepresented." Despite the national controversy, Yale's commitment to diversity should preserve affirmative action , at least for the present.
Hugh Hunter contributed to this article.
Copyright 1996, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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