Oh, dear, please don't tell me you think white privilege is a myth. Bless your heart.

What DBB said.

This 10% thing is relatively new, and it's come to pass already that it will be the top 8%, then 9%, and then 7% in a few years. Michigan's just also a lot more competitive in terms of admission and has been for a long time, and its student body is smaller than that of UT.

Really? Reverse discrimination? Are you going to go there? Please don't be so boring.

I think you are comparing apples and oranges here. The Tier 1 Carnegie classifications have to do with the number of graduate degrees given, research dollars brought in, etc.. It is not affected by quality of undergraduate education or the undergraduate experience. So UH could be doing top notch research though medical programs or a research institute but this may not affect their undgergrads much. Some of their ease of access and surge in research can be done through collaboration or funding from Houston companies (which might explain how they got there before Tech).
Look for UT-Arlington to be moving up fast in both areas though

Discriminating against better qualified applicants in university admissions does not count as getsies backsies for a DWB or workplace discrimination or some other white privilege related happening.

I guess according to you because I'm white I've had everything handed to me on a silver platter huh? Get a better argument sweetheart.

I think what she is trying to say is that in Arizona, Hispanics are often far from being a minority in some situations, even though the rest of the country might see them that way.

Is UT wholly state-owned or is it just state-affiliated?

Every university has their own definition of "qualified." A university whose sports teams have been utter shit and has a mortgage on a huge football stadium may choose to admit students who can't spell their own name but who can make 5 touchdowns per game. Different strokes for different folks. Unless they spell out that highest grades = highest possibility of admission, I can't see where anyone could bitch about it.

This whole thread is about what different folks think "qualified" means. Of course universities get the final say, well, at least except when a court orders otherwise.

If a school like UT limits their admission to only the top 10% (or, honestly, 7-9%) of applicants, how will they admit legacies or athletes, both groups whose GPA and SAT scores are lower than the rest of their class? This applies for state and private schools.

While a lawsuit against every AA program is bound to happen, I'm not sure Abigail Fisher is the best test case. While she may have been an average student, she was mediocre for the case of getting into one of the most competitive public universities.

When Miss Fisher was asked about exactly what it is she's missed out on by not attending UT, this was her reply:

"The only thing I missed out on was my post-graduation years," she said. "Just being in a network of U.T. graduates would have been a really nice thing to be in. And I probably would have gotten a better job offer had I gone to U.T."

Ironically, she's totally Googlable as the plaintiff in this case. Won't this hurt her chances in the job market in the long run? She's employed now, but as someone who just went through the job search, I can tell you that memories are long--especially when Google is involved. Fortunately, most of my results were related to races and charity events, not lawsuits that resulted from my not getting my way! Jennifer Gratz, the plaintiff in the Michigan case, has made a career out of being a mediocre whiner--maybe, if this case goes through, Abigail Fisher can do the same thing!

Also, couldn't she have transferred to UT, if going was so important to her? Or was this lawsuit more about one gigantic whine?

I will object to one item: "The university said the Top Ten program was a blunt instrument and that classes in many subjects have few or no minority students."

That has nothing to do with the Top Ten program, and more to do with the fact that some subjects simply do not attract students of underrepresented groups. My profession is one of them--in four years of undergrad and two years of grad school, I was always one of the only, if not THE only, non-Asian minority in architecture classes. Even at HBCUs, architecture programs are majority white or Asian.

Florida eliminated AA years ago, and they've done a good job of providing outreach programs to underrepresented minorities (which in Florida is black and Asian) and kids in rural areas of the state, letting them know as soon as Freshman year what they need to do in order to get into the flagship universities. Maybe this is something that Texas could expand...?

My main problem with the Top 10% program: top 10% at some schools would not equal Top 10% at others, even in the same district and even in the same small district. If UGa started this program, it would be disastrous for this very reason. I'm thinking of a district I taught in in which the top 10% of 1 school could easily get into UGa and blow away the classes. Actually, the top quarter probably could. Then there's a rural high school a few miles away that rarely even gets any students into UGa and it'd be doubtful if they'd succeed there anyway. I've taught at both schools.

But I can picture a lot of that rural school's top 10% enrolling because yee-ha, they could slap a UGa sticker on their ole truck bumpers and wouldn't that be great to show the guys? And then they'd flunk out in 1-2 semesters because they found the best pit to go mudding in near Athens--and they would've taken the place of a very qualified student from the other high school who would've aced the classes at Georgia. I'm not generalizing here, I could show this to teachers from that district and get a sad nod of affirmation.

The student from the stronger school could certainly transfer in later but it's really not the same. He or she would be merely marking time at the smaller school, possibly not even getting involved, until the minute they could be in Athens and who knows when that would be?

I can appreciate Texas desperately tying to achieve diversity. They can't win. On the other hand, has anyone ever seen statistics on how many kids from the "weaker" schools don't make it through the first year? I'd like to.

UT does not limit their admission to only to top 10%. The top 10% has automatic admission, but that alone does not meet the freshman class quota. If you look at the statistics for Fall 2008, Ms. Fisher fell right in line statistically with the freshman class that year. She was not mediocre.

Except that lots of students don't get in whose stats fall in line statistically. She could have had egregious grammatical errors in her essays. She could have written bad essays. Nobody knows for sure why she didn't get in. Look at the stats of some of the kids who don't get into Michigan or UNC or any of the original 8 "Public Ivies". It isn't all about test scores and grades at selective schools. If it was, they'd have to admit more students than they can service.

No, it's not, but why would you base admissions on a test knowing that those who can afford prep classes are going to do better than those who can't? Similarly, some students can afford tutors and extra resources to improve their grades. It is erroneous to think that a higher test score or class rank automatically means the student is harder working or naturally brighter without considering what advantages or disadvantages they have had in their own schooling.

Nice strawman.

Also, some of us believe that diversity is a good thing, and trying to structure a freshman class to include students from a variety of backgrounds is a legitimate goal of a public university.

Yes, I know that UT does not limit their admission to the top 10%; this isn't even a topic of debate and has been posted widely in most discussions on this lawsuit.

I was questioning how, if they limit their admits to the Top 10% (or, really the top 7% these days), how would they admit legacies and athletes, two groups who typically DO NOT fall in line statistically with the rest of their classmates? This is a question that's been posed to other schools as well--both public and private.

You didn't answer that question, but decided instead to post what we've all been discussing upthread, and what was pretty much common knowledge. Thanks!

Yes, she was mediocre. Maybe not for an "average" school, but UT isn't an "average" school anymore. Since she wasn't in the top 10% of her class, she was in the general admissions pool with out-of-staters (who may have scored better and had better grades), athletes, legacies, and others who weren't in the top 10% of a high school class in the state of Texas.

She thought she was entitled to get into her state's flagship, and she didn't because her scores didn't measure up. Too bad, so sad.