Less than eight months after the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors made headlines flip-flopping on the issue of race-conscious admissions, the university has declared its original policy in compliance with the law.
The report came from a board ad-hoc committee Sunday, following two Supreme Court decisions last summer that defined the constitutional use of race in admissions.
While undergraduate admissions are permissible, some private and federal scholarships that offer money exclusively to students of certain races or ethnicities are problematic and require further attention, reported the committee, after working with the university provost's office and the Virginia attorney general's office.
"What we do here at Tech may very likely become a model for other universities," Tech spokesperson Larry Hincker said.
Tim Murpaugh, spokesman for the attorney general, said his office is working with other colleges and universities in the Commonwealth to bring admission policies into compliance with the court decisions, but could not comment on the specifics at any school.
"The Michigan decision did not provide us with a hard and fast rule on the use of race, so each program has to be looked at within its own context or with its own set of facts," Murpaugh said.
Two landmark Supreme Court cases last June stemming from contested admissions policies at the University of Michigan provided a much-anticipated judgment on the use of race in admissions at colleges and universities.
In Gratz v. Bollinger, the court declared Michigan's racial point system in undergraduate admissions unconstitutional. However, in Grutter v. Bollinger, the court upheld race as one of many factors that can be considered in admissions decisions.
Although many universities now are re-examining admissions and scholarship selections policies in the aftermath of the court rulings, Tech launched itself into the spotlight last spring when, facing pressure from the Virginia attorney general's office to establish a race-neutral admissions policy, the board passed an amendment during a March closed session that eliminated all consideration of race in admissions.
Amid outrage from student and faculty groups at the secretive nature of the action, the board held an emergency session April 6, where it rescinded the March amendment and called for an examination of its policies on race in selection decisions across the university to determine compliance with the law.
Following the April meeting, the board created an ad-hoc committee to look into areas at Tech where race or ethnicity entered into selection processes. The areas it identified were undergraduate admissions, Tech's Multicultural Academic Opportunities Program, private scholarships and financial aid and federal-sponsored and McNair scholarships.
The undergraduate admissions policy, which was the main target of board concerns, is entirely compliant with the provision that race may be considered as a factor along with other factors, the committee said.
"We're very much like the Michigan law school, which pretty much got the seal of approval from the Supreme Court," said Ken Smith, special assistant to the ad-hoc committee that issued the report. "What we were doing before all the review was sufficiently narrowly tailored to meet the Supreme Court test."
He added that Virginia Tech is considering supplementing its undergraduate application with an essay that would allow any student, regardless of race, to explain how he or she would add diversity to the school.
"You've got to look at diversity much more broadly from race or ethnicity -- that's the thing we've learned from the court," Smith said.
Hincker said Tech will work with some private donors to alter scholarships that currently allow only racial or ethnic minorities to apply.
"Where there is race-exclusivity or exclusivity for any purpose, we'll need to work with the donor to modify it," Hincker said.
Some federal scholarships also are specific to race, and Hincker said Tech will comply with the guidelines of those scholarships until the government changes them to reflect the court ruling.
The committee ruled that the multicultural program it examined fit within the constraints of the Supreme Court rulings, but it is complying with requests from the attorney general's office that it investigate ways to eliminate the use of race and ethnicity in the selection process.
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