Category: Uncategorized

Role of family ties in acceptance called `institutional racism’

By TODD ACKERMAN
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

Blood ties to alumni, sometimes known as the other affirmative action, are the deciding factor in the admission of more than 300 white Texas A&M University freshmen annually, according to data provided by the school.

Such students — known as “legacy admits” — equal roughly the overall total of blacks admitted to A&M each year. Only a handful of black students a year are admitted because of legacy points.

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The Dec. 15 OpEdge of the Forth Worth Star Telegram, presents our first-week response to the Texas A&M announcement alongside a very different opinion from the Ayn Rand Institute.

Like every other response to the Texas A&M opinion, the Ayn Rand Institute refuses to deal with the fact that Texas higher education is under federal supervision for de-segregation.

Therefore, the Ayn Rand Institute can present the following argument: (1) “integration” is a worthy goal (2) “diversity” is not (3) Texas A&M is correct to abandon affirmative action as a means to diversity. But what if (4) “de-segregation” was the original intent of affirmative action at A&M and (5) “de-segregation” has not yet been completed? Then are we not back to step one above: “integration”?

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Houston Chronicle

AUSTIN — Minority lawmakers demanded Monday that Texas A&M University set concrete goals for increasing minority enrollment in the wake of its controversial policy not to consider race in admissions.

Source: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2281130

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To begin Week Two of the legitimation crisis in civil rights that was precipitated by the Texas A&M Board of Regents, The Texas Civil Rights Review returns to the question of affirmative action as a civil right.

Summary: In 1980 the Texas A&M University Regents adopted affirmative action as a “good faith” commitment to civil rights. In 2000, Governor George W. Bush agreed that affirmative action would be pursued according to “controlling law.” With “controlling law” now back on the side of affirmative action in 2003, what gives the Regents the right to reverse their own “good faith” policy?

I have read with interest some of the weekend news reports that still fail to acknowledge certain basic facts, chief among them being that Texas is one of a few states that enjoys special status because the US Dept. of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has determined that the state exhibits vestiges of segregation.

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