Transcripts For ALJAZAM Inside Story 20140428

In the real world of college admission, the art, not the science, a lot of variables are taken into account. Your high school transcript, sure. Can you hit a baseball, run really fast . Do you play the oboe or live in the part of the state or country that brings few applicants . Did your parents go to our school . An elder brother or sister. What admissions departments dont do is rank all their applicants by academic prowess and accept the top applicants for the 1,000 spots for the incoming fres freshman class. What about race . Taking race into account whether deciding to admit an individual applicant. You may endorse its value, and think of mixed student body both in class and in the determines, but it has gotten nothing but harder to take race in the account of the admissions process. What is allowed now is our focus this time on inside story. Lets start with background. The high Court Affirmative Action valuin ruling said that race should not be considered. Writing this case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it. Justice sonya so sonya soto mayor said at a does not give free rain against racial minorities and that can oppress minority groups. Its a conviction she has held for years even writing in their memoirs that she was admitted first to princeton and then Yale Law School through a back door. I think its a basic concept of requiring equal treatment, and its a value that i hold, and its wrong, its fundamentally wrong to treat people differently based on the color of your skin, race or ethnicity. Reporter but if it was lost some say it would not be fair. Inequality exists throughout this country. We zoo it in employment, we see it in schools. Reporter michigans ban was approved by a 2006 referendum. 58 of voters approved the state constitutional amendment forbidding the consideration of race for applicants or jobs. Affirmative action has been in the spotlight since. Texas law say top ten of their graduating class automatically gain access to any of its colleges in texas. And she was just barely cut off and is sued. The lower courts did not identify other realistic alternatives to promoting School Diversity in texas. However, states and schools are reevaluates how to achieve a more diverse student body. The university of colorado boulder campus is using a new process taking into account the students Economic Standing along side his or her grades. Nebraska has a Program Offering free instate tuition for pell grant recipients who continue to do well in their constitution, and Florida University offering extra assistance to the economically disadvantaged. After michigans ban took effect many of its public colleges stepped up recruiting campaigns to attract minority applicants, however the number of black and latino applicants have dropped by a third since the ban started. In states where affirmative action is pro h prohibited. One such state is florida where a ban on racial considerations has been in affect since 2001. Joining us now to discuss how the university of florida has adapt is joe glover, Senior Vice President for academy affairs. Provost. Welcome to the program. Was there a drop off of minority students after the ban. Yes, but we discovered ways to work around that drop off. You still wanted a diversified body, how did you get one . Yes, we believe we have achieved it. We focus on students who are from lowincome families and the first from their families to go to college. We found that they were quite diverse from a socioeconomic view. We provide financial packages that make it possible for them to attend college, keeping in mind that they come from lowincome families and particular families in that group are averse to loans. We do Financial Aid passage so students from that group dont have to take any loans. Those other metrics that you talked about, using economic profiles, for instance, do they serve as reliable proxies for race. If you use them do you end up with an application pool that is similar to high school in florida . No, that is not our objective. We do seek to having an admissions pool that is diverse, and we have found that looking at this particular group is an effective way at recruiting a diverse pool of africans and ultimately students who are admitted to the university. Is florida under particular pressures historical and demographic because its one of the big american states that in the coming years will become majority minority. Is this something that you have to think about because of floridas status in that regard . I think were sensitive to the demographics of the state. The university of florida has to be sensitive to admission issues because we are premiere institution in the state, and we get 30,000 applications per year for freshman class of 6400. So as you can tell from those numbers the pressure to enter the university are pretty intense, and so we do have the luxury of a large pool. Students coming here, and in general the Admissions Office has been pretty successful at using these strategies to construct diverse student body relying on both the socioeconomic criteria and Financial Aid passage that facilitate the entry of students into the diversity who might not historically or normally have availed themselves of the University Education. Youve mentioned a diverse student body on a couple of occasions. In the years that there has been this push back against the use of race and ethnicity consciously in admissions decisions has there also been the undermining of the idea that diversity is important, that it would be valuable to have different kinds of people on campus . Not on the university of florida campus. I dont believe in the state of florida itself. I think that we have reaffirmed our commit to diversity, and we constantly strife to ensure that the campus is a very diverse environment because we believe that only in a very diverse environment can the true benefits that an University Education can completely realized. We work every day to ensure that we have an environment in which all of our students will benefit and be prepared to diverge into a very diverse world. Thank you for joining us. When we come back well talk more about the cumulative power of various court rulings, and Ballot Initiatives around the country, how it has changed the landscape for Initiative Offices welcome back. Im ray suarez. On this edition of this program were talking about affirmative action at universities and few people speak in favor of an all white or all asian class. What is in the box for those who want diverse backgrounds, points of view on campus. Joining us from new york, policy associate at the century foundation. In our washington studio, amanda frost. And in sacramento, california, ward connolly, founder and president of the American Civil Rights institute. Professor frost, whatever the merits of the decision did yesterdays ruling make it easier for states to use an outright ban on raceconscious Decision Making around decisions. Yes, the answer is certainly did, but i want to make cheer what the decision did not do. It did not strike down affirmative action for prevent states who would like to incorporate affirmative action. With the opinion held with the equal protection clause of the constitution, it does not bar a state like michigan from banning the use of racebased admission policy. In those other states, are they right now untouched by this decision . No, this decision clearly sweeps as most Supreme Court decisions do, most broadly. Those states who have already done this or in the future would like to put something in their constitution or state laws that ban the use of affirmative action by their public universities, those states know they can do that without threat of constitution challenge. When you look at the map of the United States, now that proposition 2 has survived are there more states waiting in the wings to codify in law something theyve already wanted to do . No, i dont think so. Ive been very active on this issue for the last several years. Certainly they werent forbidden or deterred from doing something based on the outcome, pending outcome of the shooting case. This case has reached a dwell point that states can move on if they have, and states that have not. There are about 22 states that have citizen proposition where they are allowed. Eight of those states are already dwelt with this issue, so theyre reaching a point where there isnt a Critical Mass left over. Looking at that same mass in you overlay restrictions, is it becoming clear what the template is if you are a senior administrator. Whats in, whats out, what you can do and what you cant in this area. Yeah, i think there are a lot of strategies that have been used that i hope people will continue to follow, but also build upon. So you mentioned some of them already. Percent plans are really big. Florida, texas, california, they each have plans that admit students from the top percent from every high School Across the state. Capitalizing on the fact that getting geographic diversity will bring along socioeconomic diversity. Colleges are doing other things. Colorado university boulders plan has a really sophisticated plan for considering socioeconomic affirmative action. They look at factors that effect students and then consider that disadvantaged weighed with the achievement of students and something that they call overachievement index. Comparing students performance to students of similar backgrounds. Those are strategies that some colleges have used so far, and hopefully well see other colleges turning to as we see race off the table. That percentage that you mentioned first was put under the spotlight in texas in the fisher case when the presumption was if youre in a tough urban district in san antonio or dallas, what it meant to come in 5th to 4th percentile in your class could be very different from other areas that might be well funded. Did the idea finishing at the top of your class in texas survive the fisher challenge . One thing to look at are the outcomes for these students. Based on that these the idea is if youre getting kids in the top percent of their class at these really disadvantaged high schools, their a. C. T. Scores are probably going to be lower than the top kids at some academically thriving school. For students enrolled in texas have confirmed that. What weve seen is that students of similar background, comparing students who made it through the percent plan but maybe didnt have the a. C. T. Scores. Those students are graduating with results that are seen who are admitted through traditional means through higher act scores. Were seeing that grit, tenacity, over achievement, whatever word you want to use for it is playing out in terms that these kids are given good results when they are give a chance to attend these institutions. Ward connolly, when you watch that tool being operated, are you at peace with that, or as some critics would have it still affirmative action. The high levels of segregation in this country . Im at peace with it. Any knocks that were going to go cold turkey or even slower is a naive notion. Im at peace with that. I think universities need to have some freedom to experiment with Different Things if theyre going to try to build this diversity, whatever that happens to be. Professor frost, in recent years has it become tougher to use race and ethnicity in any way in some of the court cases, colleges wanted to retain the right to use it as one variable among a whole range of variables. It did survive challenging a 2003 case and it remains the case today what colleges and universities can have affirmative action policies. But because of the concern that it might violate, first of all, they have to have a compelling reason such as to diversify the the student body. It also benefits the races and the white students, the student majority, who need to interact with others who dont look just like them. The Supreme Court setting said that is a good enough reason to support affirmative action. That remains the latte, but there cannot be any racial quotas, set numbers or figures. They have to be careful about how they use that factor. Were going to take a short break. When we come back well talk about the future of this issue as we move forward into a near term with fewer teenagers and into a long term with fewer white people. This is inside story. Ica welcome back to inside story. Im ray suarez. Back in 2007 john roberts the chief justice of the United States wrote the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. That was from the majority 54 majority in a high School Desegregation case. This week Supreme Court upheld michigans end of race application at public universities. Still with us in new york, howie potter, policy at the century foundation. Amanda frost and in sacramento, ward connorly. Founder and president of the American Civil Rights institute. Howie potter, has this assault over affirmative action let to more honest conversations about what is at stake and what were really trying to do for americas graduating high school seniors. That has been a lot of attention to the acceptance rates from minority students places like berkeleys undergraduate program. Now they have a 57 mexicoamerican student body. This is part of the uc system not the lower academic tier program. Should we talk about where theyll find a more welcoming atmosphere and one that is likely to nurture their aspirations to finish in four years . Absolutely. I think that we have seen this conversation shift. When race is on the table colleges unfortunately sometimes talk only about race. In an ideal world you would be able to look at race and social economic status. But the good thing is the push for the broadening access its pushing it conversation. Private universities receive huge subsidies that they, too, have a duty to serve our country equally. And Research Shows that students do much better when theyre given a chance to attend Selective Schools. When one gets a chance to go to a more Selective College and the other to a less Selective College, the one who goes to a more Selective School has better grades and Better Outcomes afterwards. When we look at what it means to moving forward there should an societal push of colleges of all levels particularly the selective institutions are providing access across the socioeconomic and racial and ethnic spectrum in our country. Ward connorly is some of this going to be taken care of organically by time and demographics . The percentage of white students in senior classes across High School America is shrinking. Obviously the percentage of minority graduates is growing. At the same time the number of High Schoolers is going to shrink at least for a little while to come. Will colleges be more clever about seeking out talented minority students trying to reengineer perhaps pass exclusion that created heavily lopsided student bodies . Well, the jury is still out on that. Although racebased Decision Making has been out for a number of years. Many universities have been reluctant to embrace in my view the obvious, and that is socioeconomic measures as a replacement. But i think, and i underscore that, i think that they will be forced to make that decision within the next five to ten years. In what way . Where do you seed pendulum swinging now . Take california where 2089 209 passed and minority students are not able to academically compete for uc berkeley and san diego. As a result youre getting more students of an asian background that are going to those systems than the university wanting a form of diversity is compelled to try to look at Socio Economic conditions as a substitute. Professor, as we look at the near term, can we reach a kind of where this is an issue its an issue and where its not its not resting place, and its left elsewhere . Its hard to predict the future, but i dont see this issue as simply now having come to some resting place. I think that there will likely be cases before the Supreme Court again in the fairly near future. Some of the justices and majorities are also justice who is voted to strike down all affirmative actions on the ground. Those justices such as chief justice kennedy, Justice Alito , as scalia, i think if they had they had the opportunity to strike it down, it would end affirmative action in the nation. Thanks a lot. Great to talk to you. That brings us to the end of this edition of inside story. In washington, im ray suarez. Anger over the sentences of death that include the leader of the muslim brotherhood. Welcome, this is world news from al jazeera. Another building seized by pro russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine as the International Community impose further sanctions against moscow. New defense for tenyear deadeal for military support for