In the 1990s, Florida and Texas stopped using affirmative action as a factor in state university admissions. Instead, the states opted for programs that grant top high school seniors guaranteed admission to state schools.
Lately the Texas program, signed into law by then-Gov. George W. Bush in 1997, has a huge bull’s-eye draped over it. Critics say Top 10 Percent takes admissions discretion away from state universities and hurts deserving high school seniors who aren’t in the top 10 percent of their graduating class. The Texas Legislature has already defeated one bill that would have watered down the program’s impact, and there have even been attempts to repeal the Top 10 law altogether.
A measure is currently winding its way through the Texas House of Representatives that would cap the number of Top 10 students coming into a state university’s freshman class at 50 percent. This would free up the remaining slots, which could be filled using other admissions criteria.
By contrast, there’s no push to dismantle or modify Florida’s Talented 20 program, which was created by Bush’s younger brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in 1999. Critics say the Talented 20 isn’t in anyone’s crosshairs because it’s always been focused more on rhetoric than substance.
Texas’ Top 10 law stems from Hopwood v. Texas, a 1996 lawsuit filed on behalf of White University of Texas Law School applicants who believed they were denied admission in favor of less qualified minority applicants.
As a result of the case, Texas received a federal order to scuttle race-based state university admissions. Not wishing to derail a system that had been making gains in minority enrollment, Texas politicos, college administrators and faculty established the Top 10 program.
