Olney ISD ponders U.S. Supreme Court ban on affirmative action

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike down affirmative action admissions criteria at federally funded colleges will probably have little impact on higher education available to Olney High School’s graduating seniors, and will not affect the way the district helps kids prepare for college or trade school, OISD Superintendent Dr. Greg Roach said.

The high court opinion by the court’s conservative majority found that race cannot be a factor and that colleges would have to find other ways to achieve diversity. The June 29 decision ruled that race-conscious admissions plans violate the Constitution’s 14th Amendment equal protection clause.

In Texas, the 6-3 decision will affect the University of Texas at Austin, which was the only public university that considered race in undergraduate admissions, and private universities, such as Rice University in Houston and Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the Texas Tribune reported.

Dr. Roach said he does not believe the Supreme Court decision will affect “our community and students” nor would it change the way the OISD educates or advises graduates about where to apply to col- “Other than requirements to group kids, we just don’t care,” he said. “We have them, we teach them and choose to do so. They are kids, not groups for political purposes.”

OISD Board President Summer Branum, an attorney, said it was “difficult to predict how this decision will actually play out for college applicants.”

“The wonderful thing about public education is that there are no barriers to entry here,” she said. “A child who lives in our district can enroll in our school, and it’s our job to partner with parents to help him or her reach his or her full educational potential. We strive to help our students become exemplary citizens who will graduate with a slew of options on the table.”

Mrs. Branum said the district has “great staff who genuinely care about helping individual students reach their goals and a set of great programs to give students a head start as they prepare for college or careers in technology, trades, etcetera.”

“It’s our great task to ensure Olney graduates have the tools they need to pursue careers or higher education, earn, and thrive no matter what colleges choose to do in the future, and I think we are doing well with that,” Mrs. Branum said. “I’m optimistic about the future for our OISD students.”

Affirmative action was introduced as a result of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement to correct racial imbalances in workplaces and colleges created by segregation.

Over the years, the Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of affirmative action but allowed it to stand. The first legal victory for opponents came in 1996 in Texas when Cheryl Hopwood, a white woman sued UT-Austin for rejecting her law school application. She claimed the university’s segregated application system violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Hopwood and two other white students who joined the suit and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

A few years later, Texas lawmakers created The Top 10% plan to automatically admit the top 10 percent of each graduating high school class to the state’s public universities. UT-Austin accepts only the top 6 percent of high school graduates because it receives so many applications.

UT-Austin admits 75 percent of each class through The Top 10% Plan and the rest through a process that considers multiple factors, including race, the Tribune reported.