Florida's "One Florida" Policy A Bust?

The Orlando Sentinel reports that ten years after Florida eliminated affirmative action in admissions for its university system, the gaps continue to grown between both the black and Latino share of high school graduates and enrolled university students.

Under the ‘One Florida’ plan — championed by then-Gov. Jeb Bush — universities do not consider race and ethnicity in admissions, but instead offer spots to those at the top of their high school classes, regardless of test scores. Bush said that the plan offered a legal way to promote diversity — at a time when some doubted (incorrectly, in turns out) that courts would continue to allow affirmative action in admissions.

Patricia Marin, a higher-education-diversity researcher at the University of California at Santa Barbara, said the numbers show that One Florida has done little to improve access for minorities.

“Latinos are still underrepresented. And blacks as well,” Marin said.

Proponents argue that the weakening economy, beginning in 2008; rising tuition; and limited growth in the university system have hampered efforts to attract more blacks and Hispanics, many of whom come from low-income families.

Frank Brogan, who was Bush’s lieutenant governor in 2000 and later president of Florida Atlantic University before becoming chancellor of the State University System last summer, said One Florida has abolished “quotas” and “set-asides” and found race-neutral ways to open doors to more black and Hispanic students. Need-based scholarships help, Brogan said, but there are not enough of them.

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