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Research > Higher Education > Affirmative Action

February 7, 2003

Appearance and Reality in the Sunshine State:
The Talented 20 Program in Florida

By Patricia Marin and Edgar K. Lee
Foreword by Gary Orfield

 

IN THE NEWS
For press coverage by major media on this report, please see our In the News section. Also, see official statement by Governor Jeb Bush in response to the release of the report.

POLICY

Court Decisions

In the spring of 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in two cases that will profoundly impact the future of affirmative action in higher education. The lawsuits against the University of Michigan’s Law School (Grutter v. Bollinger) and the undergraduate College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (Gratz v. Bollinger), both challenge policies that consider race/ethnicity as one factor among many in their admissions decisions.

RESEARCH

Percent Plans in Florida, Texas & California
Percent plans - admitting a certain percent of the highest performing graduates of each high school to public universities in a state - have emerged as a basic response to the end of race-conscious affirmative action in three of the country’s most populous states – Texas, California, and Florida. Although these plans have been presented as major alternatives to race-conscious affirmative action, our research shows that it is incorrect to attribute any significant increase in campus diversity to a percent plan alone.
 
Executive Summary Full Report

The Talented 20 Program in Florida guarantees the top 20 percent of public high school graduates admission to the state university system. To receive this guarantee, students in the top 20 percent of their class must complete the nineteen required credits and submit an SAT or ACT score. However, students are not guaranteed admission to the institution of their choice.

After a review of Florida state and institutional data and interviews with staff at five campuses of the Florida State University System and several Florida state agencies, this report describes the history, implementation, and effects of the Talented 20 Program.
The report concludes that Talented 20 Plan is, in fact, not race-neutral and is not an effective alternative to race-conscious affirmative action.

Major findings:

  1. The Talented 20 plan has led to the admission of very few students to the state university system who would not have been admitted under pre-existing, non-race-conscious rules.
  2. The Talented 20 plan provided no guarantee of admission to the two most highly selective campuses in the system, the University of Florida (UF) and Florida State University (FSU).
  3. Only an insignificant number of “newly eligible” minority students achieved access to the system.
  4. The Talented 20 includes far more White and Asian students than Blacks and Hispanics, the two groups most underrepresented at UF and FSU.
  5. The minimal success of the plan relies on race-attentive recruitment, retention, and financial aid policies.

These findings are explained in the report against the backdrop of the Florida education system. Florida has a rapidly expanding proportion of Black and Hispanic students, but large numbers are lost in the pipeline because of very high dropout rates. The Talented 20 plan was implemented in a state that has done a poor job educating its minority students; which had comparatively little race-conscious affirmative action in higher education admissions; and where the selective campuses have engaged in race-conscious affirmative action in many ways outside of admissions decisions.

To view the COMPLETE REPORT and study conducted by The Civil Rights Project go to:

Appearance and Reality in the Sunshine State: The Talented 20 Program in Florida
(In PDF format, 360 KB file size, estimated 50 secs on a 56 Kbps connection)What is pdf?