“But clearly we see a change, not only in Florida but throughout America,” he says.
Bush replaced affirmative action with his One Florida plan. It includes the Talented 20 program, guaranteeing spots at state universities to the top 20 percent of the senior class at every Florida high school.
The governor denied his policy is responsible for the drop in Black enrollment.
“There was a decline because the number of out-of-state students, particularly attending FAMU but also some of the other universities, declined,” Bush said. “So systemwide there was a small decline.”
He said he remains convinced Black enrollment can be increased through such means as improving high school graduation rates, expanding advanced placement programs in high schools and offering more need-based scholarships.
“We don’t have to use set-asides or quotas that are constitutionally suspect to achieve that objective,” Bush said.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 upheld a general affirmative action policy at the University of Michigan but stuck down its undergraduate formula as too rigid because it awarded race-based admission points.
The Florida House of Representatives at one point amended the first generation bill to also let illegal immigrants pay cheaper in-state tuition if they had lived in Florida at least three years. The Senate, though, removed that provision.
— Associated Press
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