Running for Cover

Fear and Paranoia Su rrounding Affirmative Action Lawsuits Unjustified, Experts Say

By Robin M. Bennefield

Two years ago, University of North Carolina System President Dr. Molly Broad, fresh from the California State System, requested a complete review of the use of race in the admissions policies of schools in the state system.
Then last spring, Dr. David Scott, chancellor of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, announced that race would be de-emphasized in the campus admissions policy.
And just last month, the University of Virginia's board of visitors stunned many in the higher education arena when it recommended an end to the use of race in the school's admissions policy.
Are college administrators and governing boards erring on the side of caution or overreacting to the conservative legal and political climate suffocating diversity efforts at some public colleges and universities? It depends on whom you ask.
But the general consensus is that the wave of legal activity surrounding race-sensitive admissions policies has gotten everyone's attention. Whether it means the end of affirmative action in higher education as we know it is yet to be determined, but increasingly campus administrators and governing boards want a front-row seat to the recruitment and admissions game.
"It's the consequence of an unfortunate polemic," Tom Ingram, president of the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities, says. "That [some colleges and universities] are reexamining race doesn't mean that they will walk away from the spirit of affirmative action.
"What we have said is, ‘Let's not overreact to the threat of litigation,'" Ingram says. "And we encourage boards not to be panicked by right-wing groups taking advantage of the conservative climate of the country at the moment."
The current conservative climate drove the University of Virginia board to investigate the university's use of race in admissions. A study earlier this year from the right-leaning Center for Equal Opportunity released data that showed that some of Virginia's public universities — including UVA — favor Black applicants with lower standardized test scores over White applicants with higher scores.
Shortly after that report, the Center for Individual Rights, a conservative group that sued on behalf of plaintiffs in Hopwood, placed an advertisement in the Cavalier Daily to publicize its handbook on racial preferences for college and university trustees, which suggests that trustees can be held personally liable if they are aware of discriminatory practices at their institutions.
 "UVA, like most good institutions, wants to comply with the law, and that's what we are focused on doing," says John Ackerly III, the university's rector who formed the special committee to examine the school's race policy.