The University of Texas at Austin

Date: June 25, 2001

How Affirmative Action Worked at The University of Texas School of Law

The Texas Index is calculated from each applicant's undergraduate grade point average and score on the Law School Admission Test.  This is the best single predictor of academic success at the law school, it has always carried substantial weight in the admissions process, and much of the plaintiffs' case focused on this Index.  But the Index was never dispositive; the law school has never simply admitted the 500 highest Texas Index scores.  We have always considered other predictors of academic success and other sources of student diversity, including undergraduate school and major, letters of recommendation, socio-economic background, indications of hard work and persistence, hardships overcome, and the like.  Before the 1996 decision in Hopwood v. Texas, this list of factors included race.

After that decision, race was taken off the list, the whole process carefully evaluated, and the list of other diversity factors was expanded.  These changes are reflected in the law school's current admissions policy.

       Before 1996, when race was part of the process, how did it work?  The judicial findings clearly show three things about affirmative action at Texas:

  1. There was never a quota; the number and percentage of African-American and Mexican-American students admitted varied significantly from year to year. 
  2. Even with affirmative action, the proportions of African-Americans and Mexican-Americans in the law school never reached their proportion in the Texas population as shown here.
  3. African-American and Mexican-American applicants who were offered admission had academic credentials in the same range as the other applicants who were offered admission.  Affirmative action meant that within that range, Blacks and Mexican-Americans had a greater chance of being admitted.  But affirmative action at the Law School did not mean admitting unqualified applicants or applicants with significantly different academic credentials than those of other applicants.

A Comparison:  The University of Texas School of Law has a preference for Texas residents -- actually a hard quota.  Each class must be at least 80% Texan.  That means it is a lot easier to be admitted if you are a Texan than if you apply from out of state.  But it doesn't mean that the law school admits unqualified Texans.  It means that from among the most highly qualified applicants, the law school admits more of the residents than of the nonresidents.

Affirmative action for race was similar, except that the preference was smaller and the law school never had a quota.  Among the most highly qualified applicants, there are always a substantial number of minorities.  They have grades and test scores in the same range as other applicants we admitted.  The difference was that before Hopwood, we would admit nearly all the minorities in that range, and only some of the other applicants.

Sources:  Opinions of U.S. District Court, Hopwood v. Texas, 861 F. Supp. 554 (W.D. Tex. 1994), and 999 F. Supp. 872 (W.D. Tex. 1998).    For "A Comparison," Professor Douglas Laycock, the University of Texas School of Law.  For more information contact Professor Laycock at dlaycock@mail.law.utexas.edu.

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