Texas twister - Graduate Opportunities Program

Black Issues in Higher Education, July 11, 1996 by Karin Chenoweth

In 1978, Sarita Brown told the dean of

graduate studies at the University of

Texas-Austin that the reason the

university had so few minority

graduate students was the fault of

the university, not the lack of

eligible candidates. A well-run

program, she said, could bring in

many more Black and Hispanic

graduate students.

The dean called her bluff and

made Brown the head of the new

Graduate Opportunities Program

(GOP), though she had only just

graduated from college.

"I was young enough and naive enough to

think I could change the world," Brown says.

Armed with $50,000 and a tiny office

with no furniture (prospective graduate

students sat on piles of applications), Brown

molded GOP into a program that has made the

UT-Austin one of the top producers in the

country for turning out Blacks and Hispanics

with master's degrees and doctorates.

"She really created [GOP] and developed

it and presided over it for a decade-plus, and

did it with almost insufferable enthusiasm,"

says Dr. William S. Livingston, the current

dean of graduate studies at UT-Austin.

Livingston says the program has been

important not only because it has brought

minority students into graduate programs,

"but it has had a symbolic effect of telling

minority people out in the community that

the university is committed to admission."

Program Under Fire

It is also a program that is under fire. If

the 5th Circuit Court decision in Hopwood vs.

the State of Texas is upheld by the

Supreme Court, GOP will have to be radically

changed. In Hopwood, which concerned the

University of Texas School of Law, the court

ruled that race could not be used in admissions

decisions, Although GOP is more a fellowship

than an admmissions program, university

attorneys have centered on

the University of Texas School of

Law, the court ruled that race could not be

used in admissions decisions. Although GOP

is more a fellowship than an admissions

program, university attorneys have said it

would also be affected, and would no longer

be able to use race and ethnicity as part of its

criteria.

Even so, the high court ruling sent

administrators scrambling to find an acceptable

substitute for the existing programs.

"So much of what everyone was waiting

on was based on the Supreme Court providing

everybody with guidance," Dr. Brown said.

Instead of positive direction, the Supreme

Court's July 1 action sent administrators

scrambling for ways around the thorny

dilemma of establishing diversity without

violating civil rights.

"The next six weeks to two months will

be spent trying to figure out what will be the

shape of admissions and academic and

financial support programs," she said.

Her attitude was echoed throughout the

academe in the hours just after the court

refused to hear the Hopwood case.

The American Association of University

Professors, in a statement issued just after the

court's action, said it "regrets that

the Supreme Court's refusal to review the

Hopewood decision may create uncertainty

for colleges and universities attempt to

fashion legally sound affirmative action

programs to recruit and retain qualified

minority students and urges institutions to

continue such efforts."

Harvard Law professor Christopher Edley

said the court's approach to sensitive racial

cases recently expose a weakness in the

Rehnquist court.

"They can't seem to figure out how to deal

with difference," he said, referring to court's

actions when asked to review lower court

rulings on race.

Texas Southern Law School professor

Alvin O. Chambliss, lawyer for the plaintiff in

the Ayers vs. Fordice case, said he is eager for

the high court to review affirmative action in

the Ayers case. "I'm not happy that the

Supreme Court denied (review) but it's not a

funeral either," he said.

"The Black colleges were not at the table

in this higher education desegregation case

disguised as an affirmative action and we

believe that the Supreme Court would be in a

better position to review affirmative action in

the Ayers vs. Fordice case," he said.

"You have a record of over 300,000

pages. You've got the ebb and flow, affirmative

action since 1960 and importantly Black

students are at the table in the Ayers case," he

said.

Brown argues that -- particularly it,

Texas -- race and ethnicity must be used in order

to combat historic discrimination.

Now assistant dean of academic affairs

at Washington, DC's American University

Brown describes the atmosphere at

Austin in the late 1970s and early 1 one

that was "indifferent," if not at hostile to

the idea of recruiting minority students.

The faculty and administrators, said,

"had to be dragged kicking screaming"

into the process sure that Black and

minority students welcomed and part of

the institution

Pitched Battle

That battle had to be waged

on two fronts. Not only did she feel

it necessary to convince those inside

the university that

qualified minority candidates

would enrich the institution, she also had

convince Black and Hispanic college

students, along with their families and

teachers, that the university had overcome the

legacy of segregation.