The NAACP's opposition of the One Florida college initiative will be heard again by an appeals court.
By Associated Press
Published November 14, 2003
TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the NAACP can challenge rules eliminating racial and gender preferences in university admissions.
The 4-3 ruling overturned a decision by the 1st District Court of Appeal to dismiss the civil rights group's challenge to Gov. Jeb Bush's "One Florida" initiative and his "Talented 20" guarantee.
The lower court ruled in early 2002 that the NAACP hadn't shown evidence that students would be "substantially affected" by Bush's rules.
One Florida eliminated race as a consideration in college admissions. The Talented 20 plan guarantees college admission to the top 20 percent of each of Florida's public high school graduating classes. The governor said the programs would increase racial diversity in the state's universities and colleges.
The Florida Conferences of Branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had argued the rules were a startling change in policy that could be made only by the Legislature - not the governor or an executive agency.
The original challenge was to an administrative law judge, who upheld the rules but refused to find that the NAACP didn't have standing to bring the challenge.
Both the state and the NAACP appealed the judge's rulings to the 1st District Court of Appeal. The appeals court did not reach the issues related to the admissions policy but instead issued a 2-1 ruling against the NAACP's right to bring the challenge.
In Thursday's majority opinion, Chief Justice Harry Lee Anstead wrote that the 1st District Court had gone far beyond a 1980 ruling by Florida's high court that spelled out the standard for when groups have the right to challenge the actions of government agencies. What's more, Anstead wrote, the court had been inconsistent with its own rulings since then because it had allowed environmental groups and professional associations to challenge agency rules.
"In other words ... it made little sense to grant standing to persons who had formed associations out of a common interest in protecting wildlife or the environment, and yet deny standing to an association that was formed to protect the rights of minorities and is composed substantially of minorities, when policy concerning the admission of minorities to state universities was changed," Anstead wrote.
Justices Barbara Pariente, R. Fred Lewis and Peggy Quince joined Anstead in the majority. Justices Charles Wells, Raoul Cantero and Kenneth Bell dissented.
Thursday's ruling means the issue will return to the 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee to address the legal issues related to the original challenge. The NAACP will press on with the case, said Dennis Courtland Hayes, general counsel for the organization.
"We continue to believe diversity is worth fighting for," Hayes said from NAACP headquarters in Baltimore. He called the One Florida policy "wrong-headed and bad for education in this country."
In Tallahassee, the governor's office was still reviewing the opinion. But Bush spokeswoman Alia Faraj said the numbers show One Florida has worked. "We are seeing solid results," Faraj said.
Since the program was implemented, the percentage of minority freshmen at Florida's 11 public universities has remained relatively unchanged. This year, their percentage increased to 37.3 percent, up half a percentage point from the year before.
The state's largest and most selective school, the University of Florida, initially saw its portion of minority students drop, but this year it increased. UF now has a slightly higher percentage of minority freshmen than it did before Bush's initiative.
- Times staff writer Anita Kumar contributed to this report.
