Kahlenberg says the state data, compiled by Halley Potter, shows they do.
At the University of Washington, for instance, black and Latino enrollment fell after the use of race was banned but since has surpassed previous levels. At the University of Florida, Hispanic enrollment is higher and black enrollment is comparable to before race was banned (though the report’s figures show black enrollment has fallen lately from nearly 15 percent to below 10 percent).
In Texas, diversity numbers plummeted during a period in the late 1990s when the university wasn’t using affirmative action. The state implemented a “Top 10 percent” plan granting automatic admission to top high school students based on class rank, and its enrollment of underrepresented minorities has risen overall.
But supporters of affirmative action draw different lessons from the experiences of the states trying race-neutral methods. For one thing, they note that states such as California, Florida, and Texas are much more diverse now, so holding minority numbers steady isn’t progress.
UT, which now uses race as a factor for a small part of its class, argues the Top 10 percent plan failed to provide sufficient diversity, noting blacks remain underrepresented and many classrooms lack minority voices.
“If there were a better way, we’d love to see it happen, but we haven’t,” Hilary Shelton, senior vice president for policy and advocacy at the NAACP, said of race-neutral alternatives to ensuring minorities are represented at leading colleges. “What we keep seeing happen is when these programs are stripped away, we end up doing much worse in the areas of integration.”
The nearly 100 briefs filed in the Fisher case also include several from social science researchers arguing that race-neutral alternatives don’t work. In its brief supporting Texas, the University of California argues that when state voters ended affirmative action in 1996, it was unable to enroll a critical mass of black students, particularly at the two most prominent campuses—Berkeley and UCLA.
California spent tens of millions of dollars expanding outreach, de-emphasized standardized tests, and even implemented a policy similar to Texas’ Top 10 percent plan, the university told the court. But the results weren’t satisfactory. In 1995, black students accounted for 7.3 percent of admitted freshmen at Berkeley and 6.7 percent at UCLA; the figures today are 3.9 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively.
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