Second Recent Report Criticizes UC on Its Policy Toward Hiring Latinos

Unless the University of California sharply expands its affirmative action efforts, the number of Latinos in administration and faculty will remain unconscionably low, according to a report by Latino teachers and staff.

“The near absence of Chicanos/Latinos in key decision-making positions, in academic and non-academic areas, contributes to the lack of attention focused on this community,” said the report, which is scheduled to be presented to UC President David P. Gardner on Wednesday. The Times obtained a copy.

The report is the second in less than a month to criticize the UC system on its policies toward Latinos. A “report card” issued by a coalition of Latino groups in May flunked the university on its hiring and enrollment policies.

According to the latest report, the number of Latino faculty members on the nine UC campuses increased from 171 to 228 during the decade prior to 1987. That increase of 57 “is insignificant” compared to the 600 new teachers hired in those 10 years and the total faculty roll of 7,230, said the report. It also described the number of Latino women teachers at UC, 48, as “shocking.”

There were increases in the number of Latino tenured professors, from 49 to 108, and in Latino associate professors, from 40 to 54, during the 10 years. But the number of younger assistant professors who are of Latino background dropped from 77 to 58, raising concerns about who is in the pipeline to become tenured professors, the report stated.

The authors recommended that UC should increase the number of Latinos in tenure-track positions to at least 500 by the year 2000. “This figure will insure that the growing number of Chicano/Latino undergraduate students will have an opportunity to see Chicano/Latino faculty as role models,” they wrote.

The study, titled “The Status of Chicanos/Latinos at the University of California,” acknowledged that much progress was made in the last decade in boosting Latino undergraduates by 88% to a total of 10,244 between 1976 and 1987. Yet, Latino students are still under-represented at UC compared to their statewide population, the report alleged. Last year, Latinos accounted for 19.5% of all the graduates from California public high schools and 11.7% of the UC’s entering freshman class.

UC spokesman Ronald Kolb said he hadn’t seen the report but assumed that the figures in it are correct. However, Kolb said that the university has a strong commitment to affirmative action for minorities in hiring and student enrollment and that the undergraduate figures prove that. The relatively small numbers of Latino professors reflect a national shortage of qualified Latino and black candidates, he said. He stressed that the report would be “taken very seriously.”

According to the 44-page study, Latinos were very disappointed that none of the four campus chancellors appointed within the last two years was Latino. In addition, it stated, none of the vice chancellors, academic deans or department chairmen is Latino except in ethnic or Chicano studies departments. Kolb said those low figures are partly due to the low turnover in those positions.

The report is dedicated to Tomas Rivera, the first Latino to serve as chancellor of a UC campus. Rivera headed UC Riverside from 1979 until his death in 1984.

The report grew out of a conference of Latino teachers, students and staff held at UC Irvine in April and was written by a 29-member committee that included Eugene Cota-Robles, a UC assistant vice president, and Ed Apodaca, director of UC admissions and outreach programs.

“There is a real anger out there. It is beyond frustration,” said Eloy Rodriguez, a UC Irvine biology professor who is on the committee. Rodriguez said the group intends to press the issues with state legislators.