Yet in 1965 there was not one black student enrolled. In Hopwood , the case dealing with the University of Texas School of Law, it is pointed out in the trial court's decision that, absent affirmative action, an entering class of 500 would have had at most nine black admittees. With affirmative action, there were about forty. A recent survey by the National Opinion Research Center indicated that only 7 percent of Americans feel that they have been hurt by affirmative action. Because American business largely accepts affirmative action, and the Presidents were soon made aware of that.
Affirmative action means a bigger pool of employees, and eventually a bigger pool of customers.
Next, I should like to say a word or two about qualifications. We must accept the fact that under standardized tests such as the Law School Admission Test and the other equivalent tests used for various graduate programs, minorities are still not performing on a par with white applicants. And I must say that at the Law School, minorities on the average are not performing on a par with whites. Most assuredly, it does not. In any absolute sense, they are fully qualified to be lawyers.