Ruling Challenges UGa. Policy

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld two previous courts' rulings on the case, which was filed by three white students who were denied admission to the university in the fall of 1999.

Citing that the policy violates the Equal Protection Clause in the U.S. Constitution, the court's opinion stated that it is incomplete, rigid and arbitrary.

"A policy that mechanically awards an arbitrary `diversity' point to each and every non-white applicant ... and severely limits the range of other factors relevant to diversity ... violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment," the opinion stated.

In a written statement to the press, University of Georgia President Michael Adams stated the university is "clearly disappointed in the court's decision."

"We certainly respect the court, but may have a differing opinion about whether the university's admissions program is `narrowly tailored,'" it stated.

UGa., the flagship of Georgia's university system, was integrated in 1961.

Since 1996, the admissions policy has calculated a Total Student Index for students who are placed in the pool for further consideration. TSI is based on a combination of weighted academic, extracurricular, demographic as well as race points and effectively grants students of non-white skin color bonus admission points.

TSI only affects about 10 percent of students admitted to the campus every year.

UGa. Law School Professor Milner Ball said that even with an affirmative action admissions policy, minorities still constitute a very small portion of the student population.

"(The people who integrated this university) would have never dreamed that 40 years later, there would be so few black students here," Ball said. "We have only 6 percent.

"The university can't continue doing what it was doing," he said. "The question is whether they'll be able to implement a program that will conform to the guidelines."

UGa.'s administration declined to comment on the ruling.

Russ Willard, spokesman for the Georgia Attorney General's Office, said UGa. officials had not yet determined a course of action. "We are still in discussion with the university regarding whether or not to continue appealing."

Federal courts throughout the country have been striking down affirmative action policies, questioning the relevance and definition of diversity in cases from the University of Texas School of Law in 1996 to the University of Michigan Law School this year.

Herb Davis, associate director of undergraduate admissions at UNC, said the University's admissions policy is in no need of revising.

"Every student is evaluated as an individual based on their individual experience," Davis said. "We have a qualitative evaluation. Not every African-American or Asian or Hispanic student is looked at the same way."

Ball said affirmative action, a controversial part of admissions policies, should be decided upon soon.

"There's a lot of these cases in the circuit courts right now," he said. "It's time for the Supreme Court to make a decision."

The State & National Editor can be reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.