A DECADE OF ONE FLORIDA

Ten years ago, then-Gov. Jeb Bush issued his One Florida initiative to eliminate affirmative action in state contracting and in admissions at the state universities. The governor's action followed a wave of similar developments in the nation.

In California, for example, a voter-led constitutional amendment in 1996 - Proposition 209 - ended affirmative action in university admissions. That same year, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Hopwood v. Texas that affirmative action was unconstitutional in states covered by the circuit.

Bush's decision in November 1999 was a direct response to an anti-affirmative action campaign being led in Florida by Ward Connerly, former University of California regent and national spokesman in the effort to eliminate affirmative action. Although generally sympathetic to Connerly's campaign, Bush worried that Connerly's constitutional proposal would sharply divide Floridians, create substantial problems for his leadership, and disrupt his efforts to woo black and Hispanic voters into the Republican Party - votes he hoped would secure his brother the presidency in 2000.

Bush had reason to fear the effect of a constitutional amendment or court ruling. In California, Proposition 209 prohibited public institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, sex or ethnicity and gave educational leaders little flexibility in addressing diversity issues in undergraduate admissions.

Similarly, the Hopwood ruling narrowly limited the ability of public colleges and universities in Texas to use race as a condition of admission. These two decisions significantly set back racial and ethnic diversity at the major universities in California and Texas.

In an effort to avoid a similar outcome in Florida, Bush proposed as part of One Florida a Talented 20 program that guaranteed university admission to the top 20 percent of students from each public high school. The Talented 20 program was modeled after the 10 Percent Plan in Texas and was calculated to mitigate the effects of One Florida on ethnic and racial diversity in state universities.

The governor's executive order, however, came as a surprise to Floridians and universities, because he had not consulted anyone outside his office or in the state university system before he made his announcement.

In protest against the governor's abrupt action, state Sen. Kendrick Meek of Miami and state Rep. Tony Hill of Jacksonville, both black, conducted a sit-in at the governor's office in March 2000. The NAACP also launched legal action against the order. Their actions reflected the anxiety felt throughout the black community and in much of the Hispanic community about the consequences of One Florida for their sons and daughters.

So what has been the consequence of One Florida for state universities since 1999?

After an initial decline in minority enrollment at the state's flagship, the University of Florida, it and the other state universities saw a steady increase in black and Hispanic enrollments from 2002 through 2009.

With the restraints of One Florida, one might ask how they managed this diversity in admissions. Pressured by the governor, each of the universities pursued their own efforts to maintain their diversity by increasing recruitment efforts at state high schools.

The University of Florida, for example, partnered with six predominantly black and Hispanic high schools from Jacksonville to Miami to build a stronger relationship with faculty and students and to assist with the curriculum needs of the students.

Other universities built partnerships with community colleges that had large minority enrollments. Additionally, all the universities offered more expansive scholarship programs for economically disadvantaged students and for those who were the first members of their family to attend college.

After a rocky beginning, One Florida did not limit minority enrollments as severely as Proposition 209 in California and thus gave Florida's universities the opportunity to pursue innovative programs to maintain and strengthen their diversity over time.

The state's universities still have a ways to go in meeting the needs of students from diverse backgrounds. For example, despite the increase in black and Hispanic students, they still fall short of the respective populations of both groups in Florida. And the graduation rates of those students are dismal for a state that prides itself on its diversity.

The challenge before Florida's universities today is no longer whether they can admit sufficient numbers of racially and ethnically diverse students, but whether they can successfully graduate them and facilitate their entry into well-paying jobs and successful careers.