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UVM President: Affirmative Action Ruling Gives Schools Discretion

UVM President Thomas Sullivan.
Toby Talbot
/
Associated Press
University of Vermont President Thomas Sullivan says the school uses a similar admission process as the University of Texas. The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the affirmative action process is constitutional.

Somewhat buried in an avalanche of big recent news stories was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the affirmative action admissions policies at the University of Texas.

In that case, a white student challenged the university's admissions policy. The student argued that it was unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment for her to be denied admission because she said students of color were being enrolled over her and therefore the admissions decisions were denying her constitutional rights.

The University of Texas automatically admits the top 10 percent of students and then used a more holistic approach, which includes race and ethnicity in deciding which students are admitted. The court said it was permissible to take race into account, assuming that schools passed a test to be able to reach a constitutionally-acceptable result.

The University of Vermont uses the same approach as Texas. "In every one of our applications, we look at everything, holistic on the application. We take into account grade point, standardized test, leadership, courses taken, rigor of courses taken, educational and socio-economic backgrounds," UVM president Thomas Sullivan said. Sullivan had a dual interest in the case, as both the head of a university and as a lawyer.

"We don't live in a color-blind society unfortunately, today. That's the goal that our society is on a course to achieve, but we're not there yet." - Thomas Sullivan, UVM President

Sullivan said the ruling is clear that schools need to lay out a compelling case for why they are taking race into account. "That is to say that there's a substantial connection for the need to have race considered to meet the institution's goals and mission. The second part of that is that you could not achieve the diversity goals that you seek by any other means. Third, that the proposal that the university is using is narrowly tailored to meet its educational goals and fourth that you're balancing all of these interests to meet the university's mission and goals," he explained.

Some states, including New Hampshire, have banned affirmative action policies from their state schools entirely, but Sullivan said that's not the best approach.

"We don't live in a color-blind society unfortunately today. That's the goal that our society is on a course to achieve, but we're not there yet," he said. "As Justice [Anthony] Kennedy and the majority in this case has said, once you've met the criteria, the court gives deference to the institution to manage its own purpose and mission as it sees fit within these constitutional parameters."

"Remember, the court is saying that you have a constitutional discretion here, it is not constitutionally-mandated. So those states that have prohibitions, that's by state policy, this new decision will force state officials to re-look at those prohibitions now that the court has said firmly and clearly again that this is constitutionally within the discretion of the university as long as those conditions have been met," he said.

Click listen to hear the full interview with UVM President Thomas Sullivan.
 

Melody is the Contributing Editor for But Why: A Podcast For Curious Kids and the co-author of two But Why books with Jane Lindholm.
A graduate of NYU with a Master's Degree in journalism, Mitch has more than 20 years experience in radio news. He got his start as news director at NYU's college station, and moved on to a news director (and part-time DJ position) for commercial radio station WMVY on Martha's Vineyard. But public radio was where Mitch wanted to be and he eventually moved on to Boston where he worked for six years in a number of different capacities at member station WBUR...as a Senior Producer, Editor, and fill-in co-host of the nationally distributed Here and Now. Mitch has been a guest host of the national NPR sports program "Only A Game". He's also worked as an editor and producer for international news coverage with Monitor Radio in Boston.
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