Post-Hopwood plans

[Chambers Jr, Henry L.]

Hello all,

Here are a few thoughts and a hypothetical.


1) The 10% plan makes sense if you believe that each Texas high school gives
the "top 10%" of its students a sufficiently decent education to attend the
University of Texas.  If that is not the case, maybe we should look at
desegregation and school funding issues first.

2) A "discriminatory purpose" analysis that treats integration and
segregation as having a similar discriminatory purpose is not particularly
useful.  Such a discriminatory purpose analysis would suggest that any plan
stemming from a desire to help underrepresented minorities because they are
underrepresented must be viewed as one with a discriminatory purpose.

3) Assume that the University of Texas Governing Board decided that because
UT is a public institution supported by all of the taxpayers of Texas, UT
should "look more like Texas" and that the easiest way to do that would be
to go to the 10% plan.  Would such a plan be deemed to have a discriminatory
purpose?  To say that it did have a discriminatory purpose seems strange
because in recent history "discriminatory" has carried negative
connotations.

4) After seeing the road this thread has taken, it is difficult to shake the
feeling that some are arguing that mandating equality of opportunity may be
unconstitutional.  Now that just can't be right.


-Hank Chambers