Here's how the affirmative action ruling could affect Texas universities
DALLAS - By a clear majority, the United States Supreme Court has banned the use of race in determining who gets into a college or university.
Institutions of higher learning will have to rethink admissions practices, especially at top Texas schools that are more likely to consider race in who gets in.
In a 6-3 ruling, Supreme Court judges ruled race cannot be a factor in college admissions.
Constitutional law attorney David Coale explained the thinking of Chief Justice John Roberts in writing for the majority.
"Chief Justice Roberts said enough. There's never an end. Justice O'Connor famously said 25 years ago this should be done in 20-25 years. It didn't end," he explained. "The goal is ill-defined. We're just not going to have this anymore. We need to take race off the table."
The ruling overturns lower court decisions that upheld admissions programs at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Harvard against claims that public and private schools discriminated against Asian American and white applicants.
"The opinion is a criticism of what these two universities have done and goes through point-by-point the goal’s no good. The mechanism is no good, and this isn't going to be the way we do it in this country from now on," Coale said.
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So, how does this affect public and private universities in Texas?
Private universities like SMU and Rice University factored race into their admissions.
In the private sector, SMU's president says his school is dedicated to an inclusive student body faculty and staff.
He wrote, "Despite the implications this ruling may have on policies and practices at SMU, we will determine how the specifics of the high court's ruling will affect the consideration of race in our enrollment efforts."
Rice University in Houston said it’s greatly disappointed in the court’s decision, adding, "the law may change, but Rice’s commitment to diversity will not."
As for public universities, the ruling may not have much of an effect at all.
Texas law has most colleges operating under the top 10 percent plan. It guarantees admission to people graduating in the top 10 percent of their high school class. It allows students at underperforming and lower-funded school districts to have a higher probability of college acceptance. Other qualifying factors include SAT scores and extracurriculars, but race doesn’t play a direct role.
But UT Austin does factor in race. It only automatically accepts people in the top six percent, and factors in race when considering other students.
In a statement, UT said it "will make the necessary adjustments to comply with the most recent changes to the law."
Experts say the ruling, however, allows colleges to take into account disadvantaged backgrounds of students such as lower socioeconomic status, which could benefit minority students.
"The next round of litigation is going to be about things like the top ten percent rule that, on their face, are race-neutral. Ten is ten. There's nothing to do with race or gender or anything else about that. But everybody knows the top ten percent rule was put in place to get more racial diversity on campus at UT," Coale said. "Is that going to hold up under the new framework of this case? There are certainly arguments that it can be, but Chief Justice Roberts' opinion throws a lot of cold water on even using the word ‘race,’ injecting it even into the discussion."
In two previous cases, including a UT Austin case, the high court upheld race-based admissions programs.
That was before three appointees of former President Donald Trump joined the court, tipping the scales to the right.
While race will be prohibited from consideration, hopeful students can talk about how their life experiences, including race, have shaped who they are.