Activists Defend Affrmative Action in Florida

By Hans P. Johnson

In March supporters of state policies aimed at redressing past discrimination, including the NAACP and the National Organization for Women, marshaled their members in Tallahassee, where a procession of fifteen thousand advanced on the capitol while Bush delivered his State of the State address inside. As a marketing strategy, One Florida sounds wonderful, say civil rights and feminist activists and some education leaders. But as policy, these critics contend, the program amounts to a step backward.

"I’m trying to disseminate as much information as possible to encourage people to look at the numbers of students who might lose out," says Harry Shaw, a professor of English and an associate dean at the University of Florida. "The more light shone, the better chances of defeating the proposition," he adds.

The march on Tallahassee coincided with the thirty-fifth anniversary of the civil rights march on Selma, Alabama. Alluding to that fateful event and the Jim Crow era, several protesters pledged to resist restricted access to state educational institutions and to continue to block moves they see as depriving them and their families of hard-won gains.

"I see it as a possible setback," says Shaw, who has worked for greater educational opportunities for African Americans and Latinos in Florida for twenty-seven years. "People are suggesting a path of greater deliberation and study," he says. Several student groups participated in the event after Bush rebuffed entreaties from a delegation of students from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University to slow down implementation of One Florida. "It became apparent to us that we were being strung along," FAMU student Andrew Gillum told the Lakeland Ledger.

Some opponents of One Florida cite a preliminary analysis by the governor’s office, which found that abolishing affirmative action would curtail minority admissions to the state’s ten public universities, only five of which still consider race in their admissions practices. A substitute program offered by Bush, called the "talented-twenty" program, would automatically grant entry to a state university—though not necessarily to the preferred institution—to the top 20 percent of graduates from every state high school except magnet schools. According to the analysis, however, this shift alone would not yield as many minority enrollees as in fall 1999.

To offset a potential decrease, Bush has proposed enhanced financial aid. In his address, he called on legislators to approve an additional $3 million in state assistance for college and university students as part of a $20 million increase in need-based aid.

Former AAUP counsel Jonathan Alger notes that while the talented-twenty program and the increase in aid can "help to offset the loss of race-conscious affirmative action, these steps alone will not address underlying inequalities, prepare students for the rigors of higher education, or maximize diversity on each campus in the system."

In late February, Bush won approval for the program from members of his cabinet, who weighed in on the measure in their capacity as the Board of Higher Education. Their 4 to 2 vote sharpened the emerging political differences on the issue. State attorney general Bob Butterworth, a longtime defender of affirmative action, chided the governor for his handling of the issue. "We cannot allow diversity to become divisive," he said after the cabinet vote.

The state NAACP has attempted to block the education components of One Florida, and in February it filed a petition with the State Division of Administrative Hearings; a ruling is expected some time in May.

The Bush plan was set to take effect for undergraduates this fall. But until the NAACP challenge is resolved, state universities are not required to adopt a race-neutral policy or accept any top high school graduates. In addition, since much of the state’s incoming first-year class has already been accepted, fall implementation seems increasingly doubtful.

One Florida will take effect in graduate admissions on state campuses in fall 2001, and even defenders of the Bush plan concede that the impact there may be more severe. After abolition of affirmative action in public higher education in California and Texas, graduate-level admissions of students of color plummeted at campuses in those states. The numbers have since improved with the help of alternative measures to promote diversity, but they still do not reflect the demographics of the states.

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