Texas Tech Agrees to Stop Using Race in Admission Decisions
Texas Tech University Health and Sciences Center has agreed to end the use of race when making admission decisions.
The Washington Post reports that this is the first action of its kind under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and signals the approach her agency plans to take with other schools.
DeVos revoked Obama-era guidance last year that offered schools a road map on how they could legally consider race in the interest of promoting diversity.
KAMC News reports, however, that according to public documents, Tech had already ended the practice back in 2009.
The decision stems from a complaint filed against TTU by the Center for Equal Opportunity back in 2005 for its use of racial and ethnic preferences in admission.
The resolution letter said "The TTUHSC's School of Allied Health (now School of Health Professions), Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and School of Nursing never used an applicant's race as a factor in the admissions process. OCR also found that TTUHSC's School of Pharmacy, beginning in 2005, considered race or national origin in its admissions process, but then, since the fall of 2009, stopped considering an applicant's race/national origin as a factor in the admissions process. Because the four schools do not consider race or national origin as a factor in their admissions processes, OCR has no basis for further investigation of the respective admissions policies and practices of these four schools."