New recruitment strategies and the 10 percent law credited with upturn

AUSTIN, Texas
Black and Latino enrollments are beginning to edge upward again at public universities in Texas after the severe drop caused by the 1996 Hopwood decision, which dismantled affirmative action at Texas's public universities.

Officials at the University of Texas (UT), its law school, and Texas A&M University say they feel encouraged by the demographics of the incoming class.

"I think there's every reason to be encouraged by what we see," said Bruce Walker, UT-Austin admissions director.

Walker attributes the slight upturn in minority admissions for fall 1998 to three things: a new state law that requires public universities to accept anyone who is in the top 10 percent of his or her high school graduating class; vigorous recruiting efforts by the university community; and alumni fund-raising campaigns to increase financial aid earmarked for minority students.

Walker's office estimates that the 1998 freshman class will be approximately 3 percent Black. Last year's class was 2 percent African American. Chicanos/Latinos will make up 14 percent of 1998's freshmen as compared to 12 percent in 1997. There will be a total of 6,070 freshmen reporting to the UT-Austin campus in the fall.

About 80 percent of the new law school class has been chosen, said Mike Sharlot, dean of the UT law school. So far, offers of admission have been given to seventeen African Americans, as compared to eleven for all of last year. That number was down from sixty-five in 1996, the last year the law school was able to use its affirmative action program to promote Black and Mexican American enrollment.

So far, forty Mexican Americans have been given law school admission offers. Last year forty offers were extended to Mexican Americans for the entire year. The year before, under affirmative action, seventy Mexican Americans received law school admission offers, said Sharlot.