ALITO, J., dissenting
that “it’s generally true that students admitted pursuant to HB 588 [the Top Ten Percent Law] have a higher level of academic performance at the University than students admitted outside of HB 588”). Indeed, the statistics in the record reveal that, for each year between 2003 and 2007, African-American in-state freshmen who were admitted under the Top Ten Percent Law earned a higher mean grade point average than those admitted outside of the Top Ten Percent Law. Supp. App. 164a. The same is true for Hispanic students. Id., at 165a. These conclusions correspond to the results of nationwide studies showing that high school grades are a better predictor of success in college than SAT scores.[1]
It is also more than a little ironic that UT uses the SAT, which has often been accused of reflecting racial and cultural bias,[2] as a reason for dissatisfaction with poor
- ↑ See, e.g., Strauss, Study: High School Grades Best Predictor of College Success—Not SAT/ACT Scores, Washington Post, Feb. 21, 2014, online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer sheet/wp/2014/02/21/a-telling-study-about-act-sat-scores/.
- ↑ See, e.g., Freedle, Correcting the SAT’s Ethnic and Social-Class Bias: A Method for Reestimating SAT Scores, 73 Harv. Ed. Rev. 1 (2003) (“The SAT has been shown to be both culturally and statistically biased against African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans”); Santelices & Wilson, Unfair Treatment? The Case of Freedle, the SAT, and the Standardization Approach to Differential Item Functioning, 80 Harv. Ed. Rev. 106, 127 (2010) (questioning the validity of African-American SAT scores and, consequently, admissions decisions based on those scores); Brief for Amherst University et al. as Amici Curiae 15–16 (“[E]xperience has taught amici that SAT and ACT scores for African-American students do not accurately predict achievement later in college and beyond”); Brief for Experimental Psychologists as Amici Curiae 7 (“A substantial body of research by social scientists has revealed that standardized test scores and grades often underestimate the true academic capacity of members of certain minority groups”); Brief for Six Educational Nonprofit Organizations as Amici Curiae 21 (“Underrepresentation of African-American and Latino students by conventional academic metrics was also a reflection of the racial bias in standardized testing”).
