As the Supreme Court prepares to review the constitutionality of affirmative-action programs, President Bush has been championing programs such as Texas’s, which passed when he was governor. But at some of the state’s best schools, the policy has been attacked with the same words–“unfair” and “divisive”–that Bush uses to describe affirmative action. “If I had gone anywhere else, I probably would be in the top 10 percent,” Fogiel says. While Texas’s program prohibits using race as a factor, Texas’s many segregated high schools mean the result is much the same. Since the 10 percent plan was implemented, minority enrollment at UT Austin has returned to roughly the same levels as when affirmative action was in effect.
The problem with the 10 percent policy, some Highland Park students say, is that it assumes all high schools are alike. And Highland Park High–with its 97 percent white student population–is clearly unique. Even a student who scores all A’s in regular classes for four straight years wouldn’t be guaranteed a place in the top quarter of his class. (You’d need to add honors classes to the mix.)
But elsewhere, the policy is playing well. Israel Hernandez is in the top 10 percent of W. H. Adamson High School, which is overwhelmingly Hispanic. He’s the first member of his family to go to college: he’ll be attending Texas A&M in the fall. “It’s like everyone has their hopes and dreams on me,” he says. Texas A&M has been to Adamson (average SAT score: 838) more than a dozen times this year touting its Century Scholars program, which specifically targets promising inner-city students like Hernandez.
Texas’s plan doesn’t just help traditional minorities. “The 10 percent plan diversifies economically,” says Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier. “It benefits rural west Texas, which is primarily white but also very poor.”
The policy isn’t causing Highland Park students too much hardship–98 percent of its graduates went to college last year. Most of those who applied to UT and didn’t get into their preferred programs were admitted to the university nonetheless–either into another school or to a provisional program. For her part, Fogiel says she probably won’t go to UT if she isn’t accepted to Austin’s business program. She’ll opt for one of her safeties: Georgetown or Boston College.
