Percent plans established in California, Florida and Texas are ineffective as an alternative to race-conscious affirmative action plans, a recent study finds. The plans--which admit a certain percent of the highest-performing graduates of each high school to public universities in a state--were the subject of an analysis undertaken by the Harvard University Law School and Graduate School of Education and released by the university's Civil Rights Project.

Percent plans were put in place in the late 1990s after a circuit court struck down the use of race in admissions at the University of Texas Law School and after California voters banned the use of race in public university admissions decisions. They were touted by the Bush administration in February when it weighed in on two cases the Supreme Court will rule on in June. The administration took the position of being opposed to the race-conscious admissions programs at the University of Michigan undergraduate schools and law school, saying that while it valued diversity in higher education, it must be accomplished in race-neutral ways.

Although the plans are implemented differently in each state, the Civil Rights Project found that "it is incorrect to attribute any significant increase in campus diversity to a percent plan alone. A variety of race-conscious outreach, recruitment, financial aid and support programs appears to be central to the ability of some campuses to even partially recover from the loss of minority students that follows the abolition of affirmative action," the authors of "Percent Plans in College Admissions: A Comparative Analysis of Three States' Experiences" write.

"In almost every case, even with these additional efforts in place, institutions have not been successful in maintaining racially/ethnically diverse campuses through percent plans. And, relative to the current college-age population in each of these states, none of the campuses reflects the students they are intended to serve."

In January, the AFT passed a resolution in support of the UM affirmative action plan, in which an applicant's race is considered as just one of many factors but gets extra weight in order to help the university achieve its goal of a diverse student body. The union joined the AFL-CIO in filing  an amicus brief before the Supreme Court in support of the university in the two cases, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger.

More than 300 organizations are represented in the 109 briefs filed in support of the university before the court. They include 70 corporations, most of the associations representing higher education institutions, and military leaders, such as former Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf.

For more information, go to http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/.  [Barbara McKenna/AFT OnCampus]

[May 27, 2003]