UT attempted to discuss/define/explain Critical Mass in the Fisher documents.
^^UT would be striving to look like Texas demographics not national demographics.
“As a state-assisted institution, the University reserves 90% of its spaces for Texas residents per Texas law; 10% of the spaces are reserved for out-of-state and international students.”
UT has a special exemption to the top 10 percent law allowing it to fill 75 percent of that 90 percent with top ranked students - hence the UT top 7 to 8 percent requirement.
[QUOTE=""]
These percentages beg the question: what is the definition of "critical mass"? The argument at other schools in the US is that a school's demographics should be reflective of the overall US population. To apply that standard at UT would result in the conclusion that not only are asians over-represented at UT, but hispanics are too.<<<
[/QUOTE]
Or that Asians and Hispanics grab more seats in their respective ten percent than other races. Statistics rarely work without the full context. The numbers are state centric.
And critical mass isn’t a target percentage representation. You can find UT’s position in the Fisher documents.
I’ve always felt that the Grutter framework has a unique, Alice in Wonderland quality. You can pursue critical mass - but only if you can’t define it. And race can be a determining factor - if in a holistic admissions process.
UT attempted to define “critical mass”, but didn’t UT only define what it’s not?
The point that was raised that if you can’t define something, then how do u know when you’ve finally got enough?
I think it’s this inability (or unwillingness) of college admissions to define “critical mass” that is going to gut Grutter.
Sounds like you found it-?. If not, it can be googled. Appears in several sections, iirc. And in Grutter. I didn’t want to go back and chose a qualifying word. And the point was it’s not about percentage representation.
The link to the transcript of the Fisher1 deliberations is in post#51.
Go to page 20, line 3: UT cannot define “critical mass”
I know it when I see it.
@mokusatsu, I was just about to quote Justice Stewart myself. 
The early bird catches the worm. 
Sooner or later Affirmative Action in college admissions will get thrown away by the SCOTUS. It’s just a matter of time.
That’s what Republicans said about Obamacare.
Obamacare is perfectly constitutional but with each case before the SCOTUS it becomes more and more clear that AA is racial discrimination, which the Constitution frowns upon. The apt analogy would be gay marriage. Conservatives also said that discriminating based on race would be perfectly fine. The SCOTUS disagreed.
Can we not make this political?
Affirmative Action is political.
not necessarily…many conservatives believe in it. Let’s stay out of Rep v Dem though…
No, Cali. Some people can’t apparently. ;
You’d like to believe that. Convenient way to marginalize.