The Weekly Standard’s Beth Henary reports on a potentially controversial admissions policy under consideration by the Board of Regents at Texas A&M. The new policy would grant “automatic admission for the top 20 percent of graduating seniors from about 250 high schools classified by the state as ‘underperforming.’ These schools are minority-heavy.” Critics of the proposed change argue that the University is trying to skirt the 1996 Hopewood v. Texas ruling that made using affirmative action in admissions illegal.

According to Henary, the A&M situation is hardly unusual:

Where affirmative action is taboo, policies designed to achieve the same effect continue to pop up. Examples include the 10 percent rule in Texas, the top 20 and top 4 percent rules in Florida and California, respectively, and “focused” outreach efforts across the country. Last month, Lee Bockhorn (“Personal Achievement Scores: The New SAT“) reported that the University of California system plans to start using “personal achievement scores” to evaluate freshman applicants in an attempt to beef up minority enrollment figures.

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