U. of Texas at Austin Ends Minority-Hiring Program By JEFFREY SELINGO The University of Texas at Austin has quietly ended a $300,000-a-year program aimed at recruiting minority professors, out of concern that the program could be barred by a court ruling that led the state to stop using racial preferences in admissions. The Target of Opportunity program, which was created in 1987, helped to more than double the number of black and Hispanic faculty members over the last decade by supplementing salaries and creating new positions, university officials said last week. Officials dismantled the program last fall, after lawyers for the University of Texas System advised campus presidents to "avoid quotas and set-asides." The university is barred from using racial and ethnic preferences in admissions under a 1996 federal-court decision known as Hopwood. Lawyers for the system said the principles of Hopwood, as well as other federal-court rulings, could apply beyond student programs. News of the faculty program's termination was made public last week, during a discussion by the university system's Board of Regents about hiring female and minority professors. Several regents said they were surprised to hear that a ruling on admissions such as Hopwood was having an effect on hiring minority professors. Ricardo Romo, a vice-provost at Austin who led the recruiting program, said money allotted to the program had been put into a larger fund for hiring all professors. The loss of the special pool of money will have some impact on recruitment, Mr. Romo said. But he added that the minority professors hired through the program in the last decade would pay a more valuable dividend. "The cohort that is now here will help us immensely in recruiting," he said. Even so, many departments depended on the money, said Bob Jenson, a journalism professor. "There was no reason to gut this program," said Mr. Jenson, an advocate of affirmative action. "Even if you take a conservative view of Hopwood, this is well within the rules." http://chronicle.com Section: Government & Politics Page: A38