Greg is gloating over UT's request to put caps on Bush's ten percent plan. If you're giddy at the prospect of painting Bush's governorship a failure, I can see why this might excite you.

While my views on affirmative action are conflicting and uncertain, I have no such qualms whatsoever with the 10% plan and UT's request changes my mind little.

I say "go ahead and lock UT and A&M up with ten percenters." Just because the big boys don't like it doesn't mean that they're right. In regards to their own interest, they might well be, but their interests don't trump everyone else's, from my point of view.

Critics of the plan from both the left and the right quip that it's merely affirmative action by another name. UT wishes to be released of this so that they can go back to some sort of AA function, which provides liberals with a temporary victory and conservatives an issue.

But there is a key difference between the two. One takes into account the student's background and the other pays more attention to its race. Ideally, under affirmative action colleges would be able to look at each of applicants and get an individual sense of what they have to offer, but that's not the case because there are so many applications that the big boys have to go through. The result was that two kids with near the exact same education bonafides that went to the same school will have two different standards of admission.

The Ten Percent rule circumvents this to a degree and picks up diversity by way of geographic diversity. Poor inner city high schools will get the same "quota" as those in the suburbs will. Because of the de facto segregation of schools, this creates racial diversity as well as geographic.

This is also used as an attack on the system: it depends on segregation to be effective. Well yeah, but if the schools weren't as segregated as they are, neither affirmative action nor the ten percent rule would be necessary. The Ten Percent Rule accepts two realities that affirmative action and complete lack thereof do not: College admissions at big universities are necessarily shallow in their admissions methods and the general backgrounds of different races create trends that keep people segregated.

The Ten Percent Rule prevents colleges from just looking for black and Hispanic slots to fill (might be a reason why they want it to go away) while boosting (albeit not as much as affirmative action) minority numbers and providing a way out for those who come from crummy schools.

It's obviously imperfect. Some kids transfer to poor schools for their last semester or two in order to get into UT or A&M. It also puts some people that aren't prepared for the more rigorous public universities in above their heads. I'm not against revisiting the policy to correct these problems (perhaps making them have been a student at the high school for two years or having some sort of remedial program to prepare them for the big colleges), but I'm not thrilled to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

There are also benefits beyond diversity that are often painted as drawbacks. Because of the Ten Percent Rule and increasing population in the state, non-"Tier I" universities are becoming exponentially more competitive. Just a few months ago I heard a phrase I never thought I'd here from someone that went to a good high school and graduated in the top third of her class:

"I wanted to go to the University of Houston, but I couldn't get in."

When I was applying for colleges, the University of Houston was a gimme. I almost didn't go there for that reason. Luckily, I knew some people in the honors program that changed my perspective on the school. If my friend's experiences are any indication, I wouldn't be able to get in.

It's not just UH. By the time I graduated, Texas Tech (which was supposed to be a gimme as well) was only barely within my grasp. Today the third most applied to university is Southwest Texas State University. As applications come through, they too will become more competitive.

The more competitive these universities become, the less "ghetto" that the University of Houston becomes, the more their degrees will mean. The more people that graduate from there, the more alumni donations they'll get.

Affirmative Action and the Ten Percent Rule are mostly pushing the numbers around, but the primary concern I have is whom it's pushing where. The beneficiaries of Affirmative Action or suburban and upper middle-class minorities and the losers are poor whites. The beneficiaries of the Ten Percent Rule are the best and the brightest from poor schools, regardless of color. The losers are kids that go to well-off high schools.

I much prefer the latter set of winners and losers to the former, even though I'm the exact type of person that's losing from the deal.

But people like me that can't get in to UT (I might have been able to when I graduated, there's no way I could now) will end up going somewhere else. That will raise the requirements and make the schools considerably more competitive (or competitive at all).

It's the type of people that wanted to go to UT that would most likely exhibit the kind of school spirit to boost athletic programs, which raise the school's profile. Additionally, they're the type that donates to the school when they graduate and bring in more money.

At the end of the day, UT & A&M will always be the premier (public) schools in Texas. Ten Percent Rule, no Ten Percent Rule, affirmative action or no, that will remain the case. To that extent, Greg and Charles are both right insofar as the state needs to start planning to have more than two premier schools. Florida has at least three, California has a handful, and it's time that Texas step up to the plate.

Though it pains to me admit it, I don't believe the University of Houston is a logical beneficiary due to geography among other reasons. Taking Texas Tech the last ten yards would be a good start and other collegetown teams (SWTSU in San Marcos, UNT in Denton, and possibly UTEP for some more geographical balance). Regardless, for a state our size, we need at least one more heavy hitter.