Race preferences okay - to a point

The high court rules that race matters in college admissions. Officials say that won't change Florida: "We've moved beyond that," a provost says.

Before and after affirmative action chart.

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In the most significant affirmative action decision in a generation, a split U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that race can be used as a factor in university admissions but not the predominant one.

The decision brought immediate pressure on Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who outlawed the use of race in university admissions in his One Florida plan four years ago.

"Gov. Bush made a mistake with One Florida, and he needs to correct that mistake," said U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, who along with state Sen. Tony Hill, staged a sit-in at the governor's office in 2000 protesting One Florida.

The Supreme Court cases, both out of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, are not expected to have any immediate impact on Florida universities.

Bush issued a statement Monday saying he will stick to his plan.

"We're going to stay the course on race-neutral admissions and expand our programs to reach all Florida students who yearn for higher education," Bush said.

The governor pointed out that the Supreme Court singled out Florida as a race-neutral alternative that other states might follow.

But One Florida did not entirely eliminate race as a factor. Florida universities aggressively pursue promising minority students to diversify the applicant pool. Then, they are not supposed to use race as a factor when final selections are made, though admissions officers often can decipher a student's race.

"There's no way of being blind unless you eliminate every identifying factor," said John Barnhill, FSU director of admissions and records. "I don't know how you could review a file without knowing."

Monday's ruling was the latest word in a 25-year debate over the court's 1978 landmark Bakke decision. In that case, a split court outlawed quotas in admissions, but allowed race-based decisions to maintain diversity.

Like the Bakke decision, Monday's decisions did little to quell the debate over affirmative action.

"The court made a very ambiguous ruling - and a sickening one," said Ward Connerly, whose 1999 push for a ballot initiative to abolish affirmative action in Florida prompted Bush to create the One Florida plan. "It left the nation in the position of agony. . . . We will be fighting this battle for another 25 years or more."

Monday's action involved two Michigan cases. In a case involving undergraduate admissions, the court rejected 6-3 a plan that awarded minority students points enhancing their admissions prospects. In the 150-point admissions index, minority status was worth 20 points.

The other case involved law school admissions. In a 5-4 vote, the court decided race could be considered as one of many factors in the interest of ensuring a diverse student body.

Writing for the majority, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, "The Law School's admissions policy promotes "cross-racial understanding,' helps to break down racial stereotypes, and "enables (students) to better understand persons of different races.'

"These benefits are "important and laudable,' " O'Connor wrote, "because "classroom discussion is livelier, more spirited, and simply more enlightening and interesting' when the students have "the greatest possible variety of backgrounds.' "

Educators, politicians and students tended Monday to agree with the justices' belief in the value of diversity.

"That's one of the reasons I'm here - a diverse campus," said Ericka Clay, an African-American student attending the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. The Largo High graduate sat in the USF library Monday studying with two white students and a Hispanic student.

Like many Americans, however, Clay is uneasy about the use of race in admissions to achieve that diversity.

"I just don't think race should be a factor," Clay said.

Seventy-nine percent of Americans say it is important for colleges to have a racially diverse student body, according to Public Agenda, a nonprofit opinion research organization in New York.

Fifty-four percent say affirmative action programs should continue, but 70 percent say less qualified students are "often" or "sometimes" accepted to schools because of affirmative action.

Bush ignited a firestorm in 1999 when he set out to eliminate race as a factor in Florida university admissions, while promising to maintain diversity.

Bush's One Florida plan, created by executive order, affects state purchasing and education, from kindergarten to postgraduate studies. Race was eliminated in undergraduate admissions, and in graduate schools a year later.

The program triggered protests, highlighted by the sit-in staged by African-American lawmakers Meek and Hill, who warned that minority representation in schools would plummet.

That's what happened in Texas and California after racial preferences were eliminated.

But in Florida the percentage of minority students decreased slightly or remained the same while the actual number of minority students increased.

The biggest problems were at the state's most selective school, the University of Florida, which suffered an embarrassing drop in minority enrollment but managed to bring the percentages back up.

Before One Florida was implemented in 2000, Florida's most selective universities used race as a factor, though it varied from school to school.

For example, UF weighed race more heavily in its admissions formula, rather like the University of Michigan point system. FSU used it as just one of the 21 factors considered, aside from standardized test scores and grades, along with factors such as whether a student's parents went to FSU.

Admissions directors say they now consider other factors, mostly socioeconomic ones, instead of race to help them ensure their incoming classes are still racially diverse. Those factors include whether students come from single-parent families, are the first in a family to attend college or asked for application fee waivers.

Both UF and FSU added essay requirements after One Florida to consider more about students than just grades and test scores.

Florida schools also increased recruitment efforts at predominantly black or Hispanic high schools. They contact minorities students from lists they buy from the College Board, which administers the SAT, and hold minority college fairs.

"We target the population," said Douglas Hartnagel, USF's associate vice president for enrollment planning and management. "If we have a strong recruitment strategy, then we'll get the final numbers we want."

At USF, officials started mentoring programs and a tutorial center and hired a recruiter in Miami. At UF, administrators established outreach programs with three low-performing high schools in Jacksonville and Miami, and created a minority ambassador program to hold campus events and visit high schools during vacations. They also increased the number of minority scholarships and added four new admissions officers to expand recruitment efforts.

University officials say the Michigan ruling doesn't change a thing in Florida unless Bush and other lawmakers change policy.

"We've moved beyond that," said University of Florida provost David Colburn. "Our most holistic approach is a better approach."

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