Supreme Court Upholds
Texas Ruling
By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer
Monday June 25 5:03 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court remained silent Monday on race-conscious admissions policies in higher education, refusing to hear Texas' challenge to a ruling that its law school affirmative action program discriminated against whites. Without comment, the decision not to take the case showed the justices are not yet ready to break years of silence on preferential admissions in public colleges. This may not be the last word, however, because challenges to the University of Michigan's preferential policies could reach the court in the October term.
The high court hasn't spoken definitively on the issue since the fractured 1978 Bakke decision, when the majority said universities may take race into account in admissions. States across the country are wrestling with ways to keep up minority enrollment in public colleges, and several are operating under court orders or negotiated agreements to end discrimination in higher education. While the Texas case involved the law school policy, it had a much broader effect in the state. Once the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the policy, the state devised a new system for all its undergraduate public colleges.
The substitute includes guaranteed admission to any public university in the state to students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school class. For professional schools, however, the state's alternative was extensive minority recruitment. ``Today's order resolves nothing,'' University of Texas law professor Douglas Laycock said. ``We are disappointed, but sooner or later the court will decide this issue. In the meantime, we will explore our remaining legal options, and we will work aggressively to recruit those minority students that the courts will let us admit.''
Liz Barry, associate vice president and deputy general counsel at the University of Michigan, said there is good reason for the court to review that school's policy. The university ``has created a significant record about the educational benefits of diversity,'' she said. Two lawsuits challenged the school's policy of taking race into account. In March, a federal judge in Detroit struck down the law school's admissions policy, saying the criteria were not clearly defined and relied too heavily on race. The decision contradicted another lower court ruling that upheld Michigan's undergraduate preferential admissions standards, in place since 1999.
Both cases have been appealed to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. Michael Rosman, an attorney for the two white students who challenged the Texas policy, said the court may place greater significance on the Michigan case because there's a preferential system still in place. This is the second time this term that the court decided to keep silent on the issue. In May, the justices declined to consider a race-conscious admissions policy at the University of Washington Law School.
The Texas law school policy gave special consideration to black and Mexican-American student applicants. The Supreme Court was first asked to consider the case in 1996, but refused that year. Since then, the case returned to the lower courts and has worked its way back. Texas education officials have said the ruling left the state at a competitive disadvantage with other public universities in recruiting students.
The Texas attorney general's office, in a brief in favor of the affirmative action policy, said the court should decide whether the Bakke decision remains the law of the land. ``The court's long silence on consideration of race in higher education has left conflict and confusion in the lower courts,'' the state argued.
Six states currently have voluntary agreements with the U.S. Department of Education to desegregate their higher education facilities: Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Maryland, Florida, Texas and Ohio. Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee are under court orders to desegregate. The case is Texas v. Hopwood, 00-1609.
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