Texas's 'Top 10 Percent' Law Sacrifices Merit for Artificial Racial Diversity at UT Austin
Source: Breccan F. Thies. "Schools Like UT Use Rule To Boost 'Diversity' Instead Of Merit." September 17, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author argues that a Texas law meant to boost campus diversity after race-based admissions were banned actually punishes talented students who happen to attend competitive schools, while rewarding less academically strong students from weaker schools just because of where they went to high school. He claims this explains why UT Austin now has very few white male students, calling it an unfair, backdoor way of achieving racial diversity without officially considering race.
Conclusion
Texas's Top 10 Percent Law and related admissions rules artificially boost racial 'diversity' at schools like UT Austin at the expense of merit, disadvantaging high-performing white and Asian students.
Premises
- After a 1996 court ruling banned explicit race-based admissions, Texas enacted the Top 10 Percent Law in 1997, guaranteeing admission to the top 10% of every high school's graduating class regardless of how that class compares academically to other schools statewide.
- This system allows lower-performing schools (correlated with non-white areas) to send students to UT Austin with lower absolute academic credentials than students who narrowly miss the top 10% at higher-performing (majority white/Asian) schools.
- The rule disadvantages high performers at large or elite schools: a student ranked just outside the top 10% at a large or highly competitive school may be rejected, while a lower-scoring student from a weaker school with fewer competitors is guaranteed admission.
- Only about 15% of UT Austin's Texas-resident slots are filled through genuinely merit-based (non-automatic) admissions, with the remainder governed by the percentage rule, non-resident caps, or top 5% automatic admission.
- Current UT Austin demographics (68.9% racial/ethnic minorities, only 13% white males) reflect the cumulative effect of this policy structure combined with Texas's changing demographics.
- Despite whites now being a demographic minority in Texas, the admissions system still favors non-white applicants, making admission comparatively harder for white applicants.
Assumptions
- Standardized test scores (e.g., SAT) and class rank comparisons across schools are valid proxies for 'merit' and academic ability.
- A system that does not equalize competition across schools of different average performance levels is inherently unfair to individual high-achievers rather than serving legitimate policy goals (e.g., geographic/socioeconomic diversity).
- The demographic outcome (high percentage of racial minorities, low percentage of white males) is primarily attributable to this specific policy rather than other factors like differential application rates, financial aid, or personal choice.
- Racial and ethnic diversity resulting from a formally race-neutral policy is functionally equivalent to intentional race-based discrimination against whites and Asians.
- The demographic shift in Texas's population (fewer whites, more Hispanics/Asians) is relevant to whether current admissions policy is unfairly biased against white applicants specifically.