SPECIAL REPORT - WHY THE END OF AFFIRMATIVE-ACTION WOULD EXCLUDE ALL BUT A VERY FEW BLACKS FROM AMERICA LEADING UNIVERSITIES AND GRADUATE SCHOOLS

There are strong nationwide pressures to establish race-blind admissio ns procedures in American institutions of higher education. As a conse quence of the passage of Proposition 209 in California, the Hopwood Co urt of Appeals ruling in Texas, and current proposals in Congress to b an racial preferences for institutions that conduct business with the federal government, it is important to assess the impact of these chan ges. In a race-neutral admissions environment, it is probable that the standardized tests will take on an even more important role in determ ining who is, and who is not, awarded places in the first-year classes at the nation's highest-ranked undergraduate colleges as well as in t he country's leading graduate and professional schools. Our calculatio ns suggest that if standardized tests become the determining factor in admissions decisions at these schools, black enrollments at these ins titutions will drop by at least one half and in many cases by as much as 80 percent. In the following pages we show what is likely to happen to black admissions, particularly at highly ranked undergraduate coll eges, law schools, and medical schools, if admissions decisions at the se institutions are largely based on the scores of standardized tests.