Coming to Terms with Fisher - Higher Education: SAN FRANCISCO — Though campuses nationwide will likely face more scrutiny over their admissions policies in the aftermath of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, a former Clinton administration official turned UT professor predicts that using race as a factor will continue as part of UT’s affirmative action efforts.
“Race-neutral policies fail in Texas,” said Norma Cantú, a UT professor of educational administration. “There are still racially segregated and isolated high schools in the state, even in 2013. We shouldn’t have them anymore, but we do.”
Cantú’s comments came during a session of the six-day, American Bar Association (ABA) annual meeting, which drew 8,000 attendees and wrapped up Tuesday.
Cantú, who holds a joint faculty appointment in UT’s law school, also cited statistics resulting from the university’s race-blind “Top Ten Percent” admissions policy, which, for at least a decade, has guaranteed undergraduate admission to any student who graduates within the top 10 percent of his or her Texas high school. In 2012, about half of all qualifying Whites in the state and one-fourth of all qualifying Asians applied to UT under the “Top Ten Percent” offer.
