Ten years ago in November 1999, then-Gov. Jeb Bush issued his ``One Florida'' initiative to eliminate affirmative action in state contracting and in admissions at the state universities.

His decision 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 for the effort to eliminate affirmative action.

Although in general sympathy with 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 African-American and Hispanic voters to the Republican Party -- votes he hoped would secure his brother the presidency in 2000.

The governor 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 very little flexibility in addressing diversity issues in undergraduate admissions.

Similarly, a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that affirmative action was unconstitutional (Hopwood v. Texas) 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 major universities in both California and Texas.

To avoid a similar outcome in Florida, Bush proposed a ``Talented 20'' program as part of his One Florida order, which guaranteed university admission to the top 20 percent of students from each public high school. The Talented 20 program was modeled after the ``Ten 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, elected officials Kendrick Meek, then a state senator from Miami, and Tony Hill, a state representative from Jacksonville, both African American, conducted a sit-in at the governor's office in March 2000. The NAACP also launched legal action against the governor's order.

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 both African-American 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.

UF, 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 with large minority enrollments. Also, 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 very 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 way to go in meeting the needs of students from diverse backgrounds.

Despite the increase in African-American and Hispanic student numbers, they still fall short of the respective populations of both groups in Florida. And the graduation rates of both African-American and Hispanic students are dismal for a state that prides itself on its diversity.

The challenge is no longer whether Florida's universities 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.

David R. Colburn was provost of UF at the time One Florida was implemented and Brian Dassler was chair of the One Florida Task Force that Student Government formed in response to One Florida.