Percent-plan alternatives not the answer, U-M leaders say

President George W. Bush called them an alternative to race-conscious admissions. U.S. Education Secretary Roderick Paige announced just more than a week ago that he plans to promote their use. But U-M officials say they are not an adequate substitute for the consideration of race as one of many factors in admissions.

They are percentage plans, which call for colleges and universities to admit the top students of each high school class. Used in three states to date—Texas, California and Florida—the plans are intended to increase minority enrollment by taking a fixed percentage of the highest achievers at each high school and guaranteeing them admission to public universities.

There are several problems with percentage plans, says Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Lester Monts, the most obvious flaw being that they haven't worked to increase minority numbers in states that have used them.

"In Texas, for example, from 1996 to 2001, a U.S. Civil Rights Commission study found that the number of Black students applying to the University of Texas at Austin increased 24 percent, but the proportion of Black applicants admitted decreased by 19 percent," Monts says. "The number of applications from Hispanic students increased by 20 percent but the proportion of those admitted declined by 15 percent.

"Despite the percent plans, minority enrollment at UT Austin is still lower today than prior to the 1996 Hopwood decision (5th Circuit Court of Appeals) prohibiting the consideration of race, and both Blacks and Hispanics continue to be underrepresented. Blacks made up only 3.4 percent and Hispanics 14.3 percent of the entering freshman class at UT Austin in fall 2002. The population of Texas is 11.5 percent Black and 32 percent Hispanic."

Vice President and General Counsel Marvin Krislov says percentage plans rely on the fact that the educational system is segregated. In order for universities to achieve diversity through such plans they must be able to draw from minority high schools.

"It is wrong to endorse segregation as a formal system and to base our public policy upon it. On the contrary, we should be working to eradicate segregation from our school systems," Krislov says, citing a Harvard Civil Rights Project study that concludes the nation's schools are becoming increasingly segregated.

Another problem with percentage plans, says Krislov, is that not all high schools are equal in preparing students, nor are all students at the high schools in a given state reaching the same level of achievement. As evidence, he points to a Chronicle of Higher Education analysis of Florida data from 1997-98, which shows that students at 75 of Florida's high schools could have carried a C+ average and still have ranked in the top fifth of their classes. Also at issue are schools that have more rigorous curricula than others.

"Plans that rely solely on class rank may encourage students to avoid hard classes and more competitive schools at the high school level, in order to superficially improve their GPA and class rank," Krislov says. "U-M pays close attention to the quality of the student's high school and the rigor of the student's high school curriculum. These criteria would effectively be eliminated under a percentage plan."

Of particular concern for the University, Monts says, is that the percent plans don't consider other factors important in student selection. The plans choose students solely on the basis of their comparative ranking with classmates, discounting leadership ability, extracurricular activities and teacher recommendations, Monts says.

"They also take away the judgment of educators as to whether individual students are academically qualified for the level of work required at each college," he says. "Students in the top 10 percent of failing schools may be unprepared for college-level work and may require remedial support."

More information on why percentage plans do not work can be found on the University's Admissions Lawsuit Web site: http://www.umich.edu/~urel/admissions/faqs/percent-plan.html.

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