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A federal court struck down affirmative action at the University of Georgia. There but for his plan, the governor says, goes Florida.
By LUCY MORGAN and ALISA ULFERTS
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 30, 2001
TALLAHASSEE -- In the wake of a federal appeals court decision that struck down Georgia's race-based admissions policy for universities, Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday that his "One Florida" plan has saved the state from "ultimate chaos."
Bush noted that if Florida had not changed its admission policies, the state could now be confronted with scrapping it with no alternative in place to protect diversity.
On Monday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the University of Georgia's policy that gave preference to racial minorities in admissions, saying that race alone cannot be used.
"The prospect of a decision like this one substantially motivated my decision," Bush said Wednesday. "It means we were right. I don't want to say I told you so, but I told you so. Had we not implemented One Florida what we'd have right now would be ultimate chaos."
Officials at the University of Georgia argued that an affirmative action policy that awards points to minority students during the admissions process helps remedy years of racial discrimination.
Last year, Florida traded similar admissions policies for One Florida, the governor's plan for recruiting minorities by using advertising, offering financial incentives and granting admission to the top 20 percent of Florida high school graduating classes.
The role of affirmative action in university admissions is likely to be decided in the end by the U.S. Supreme Court because federal appellate courts are divided. The appeals court that hears California and Washington cases has allowed race to be considered as a factor in college admissions, but the court in New Orleans sided with opponents of affirmative action in a Texas case.
Bush said Florida's policy could become a model for the rest of the nation. He added that more African-Americans are attending Florida universities today.
That might not be the case at Florida's biggest university, the University of Florida, where officials are expecting the number of African-American students to drop. They predicted this month that blacks will make up 6 percent to 7 percent of this year's freshman enrollment at UF. That's down from almost 12 percent last year, when the university was still factoring race into many of its admissions decisions.
The University of Georgia also reported a drop in its fall enrollment of minorities, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported this week.
Bush proposed his One Florida plan in late 1999 at a time when it appeared likely that the issue would be before Florida voters. Californian Ward Connerly launched a petition drive in Florida after winning a similar campaign in his home state.
After Bush's One Florida plan was announced, Connerly's initiative lost momentum and was ultimately tossed off the ballot by the Florida Supreme Court.
Bush proposed the alternative plan in an effort to head off a divisive campaign that focused on race, but he quickly ran into trouble with black legislators who accused him of attacking programs that have helped minorities win state contracts and college admission.
On Wednesday, one of the governor's leading critics, state Sen. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, said he is uncertain how the Georgia decision will affect Florida.
"I guess we just sit on the sidelines and watch it happen," Meek said. "Our case is in state court; maybe it will go in a different direction."
The Florida NAACP filed suit against the state university system to overturn the new college admissions policy, but lost in an administrative hearing.
That decision remains on appeal.
The Atlanta court also hears appeals from Florida's federal courts, and its rulings are binding on Florida.
In Georgia the lawsuit involved the state's flagship university. For its first 160 years of operation, Georgia did not admit blacks. It began admitting black students in 1961, and in 1970 was forced by the U.S. Office of Civil Rights to begin using affirmative action programs.
In determining freshman admissions, Georgia gave points to non-white applicants and accepted black students with lower SAT scores than were required of white students.
In 1999 three white women denied admission filed suit. Lower courts declared the affirmative action policy unconstitutional and ordered the university to admit the women.
Georgia argued that a diverse student body was a compelling state interest.
The court said race-conscious policy must remain flexible enough to ensure that each applicant is evaluated as an individual.
Georgia argued that it gets too many applications to give individual consideration to each and must use a point system that helps determine finalists.
If the state wants to use race as one of those criteria, it should be prepared "to shoulder the burden of fully and fairly analyzing applicants as individuals and not merely as members of groups when deciding their likely contribution to student body diversity," the court noted.
In addition to race, Georgia awarded points to applicants for their SAT or ACT scores, alumni connections, extracurricular activities, Georgia residency, summer work, grades and other criteria.