Burnt Orange Report

Affirmative Action Back at UT

By Byron LaMasters

The UT Board of regents voted yesterday to let each individual school within the UT system decide what they would do regarding affirmative action. They declined a systemwide policy, though. The Daily Texan reports:

Consideration of race in admissions and financial aid will be left to individual UT System schools after the Board of Regents declined to implement a system-wide policy on affirmative action.

School policies may be revised after Supreme Court decisions in late June negated a ban on race-based policies that stemmed from the Hopwood case of the mid-1990s. But details of the revisions will be left to each campus, and schools must consider race-neutral alternatives before implementing any race-conscious policies, Board Chairman Charles Miller said.

UT law professor Doug Laycock said the board will still act as a supervisor in the process.

"Review will occur at the system level, but the individual policies will come from each campus," Laycock said. "We have to have plans that vary by program."

According to the resolution released by the regents Thursday, each campus will be required to submit a proposal to the board, outlining their policy and demonstrating that race-neutral admissions policies are inadequate, Miller said.

Admissions and financial aid revisions submitted to the regents for approval this fall will go into effect by fall 2004 at the earliest, he said.

UT System Chancellor Mark Yudof said the Board of Regents would also continue to monitor the necessity of race-conscious admissions policies and that the regents' guidelines will be revisited in the next five years.

It's a matter of proceeding conscientiously, Yudof said.

"The question is: What would be a careful, prudent, lawful affirmative action program?" Yudof said.

Under the new resolution, each UT System campus would have a different plan based on the demographics, needs and goals of the institution, Yudof said.

The University of Texas noted their intention to use affirmative action for some admissions in a June 23 press release immediately following the Supreme Court decision overturning Hopwood.