Students Campaign to Keep Programs : Education: Minority groups coalesce to protest further setbacks in affirmative action. They say the field isn’t level.

Jarrett Jones plans to attend Los Angeles Community College in the fall in the hope of eventually transferring to UCLA or UC Berkeley to pursue a degree in sociology.

But the recent decision by the UC Board of Regents to eliminate affirmative action programs in hiring, contracting and enrollment at the system’s nine campuses has left Jones wondering if he’ll ever reach his goal.

“I just don’t know how feasible this is going to be now,” said Jones, an 18-year-old African American who graduated with honors from Manual Arts High School in South-Central Los Angeles this spring. “It’s going to be harder for me to get in.”

But while the trustees’ action was discouraging for Jones, it also served as a call to action.

He and about 80 other young people in South Los Angeles have launched a campaign against efforts to scrap other statewide affirmative action programs that for decades have sought to increase opportunities for women and minorities in schools and the workplace.

“It’s going to take us as a community to unite to make sure this process doesn’t go forward,” said 18-year-old Brenda Caballeros, who, like Jones, belongs to one of three local youth organizations that have formed a fledgling coalition to save affirmative action.

Critics say the system of race- and gender-based preferences designed to overcome past bias is discriminatory. But proponents argue that affirmative action has not yet fulfilled its mission to create a level playing field for all Americans.

“I’m not saying we need affirmative action forever, but it hasn’t reached its goal,” Jones said. “You can’t give it 30 years and say, ‘OK, everything is equal now.’ ”

High school junior Annetta Wells agrees.

She said the scales are still tipped against minorities because many still live in underfunded school districts and receive inadequate education.

“No money means no education,” said Wells, a member of South Central Youth Empowered Thru Action, one of the groups in the youth coalition. The organization is an offshoot of the nonprofit Community Coalition for Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment.

“You always hear about how we are the future,” Wells said. “But taking this program away is not going to help us survive.”

A study commissioned by the regents before their July 20 decision indicated that black enrollment in the UC system would drop by as much as 50% if affirmative action were abolished. African Americans now make up 4% of the system’s 151,356 students.

The report also predicted that the number of Latinos at University of California schools would fall to 11% from 13%, though they make up more than 25% of the state’s population. Nearly 19,000 Latinos are enrolled in the system.

In addition, at least two proposed ballot initiatives to scrap all public affirmative action programs have been filed with state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren’s office. A third, and possibly others, are expected to be filed by the end of the summer.

Although few if any of the 693,230 signatures required to place each initiative before the voters have been collected, the local youth and their supporters have no doubt at least one of the measures will reach the ballot.

“We’re proceeding as if it’s already on the ballot,” said Adrianne Shropshire, an organizer with the Action for Grassroots Empowerment and Neighborhood Development Alternatives community group. The nonprofit organization sponsors the Agenda for Action Among Youth group (AAAY), which is also part of the youth coalition.

The third group is the Youth Empowerment Project, a program that promotes education and employment that is funded through the U.S. Department of Justice.

For the past few months, the groups have been working separately to increase awareness on the threat to affirmative action with teen forums and even musical events.

The coalition’s first joint event, spearheaded by AAAY, was to assemble two vanloads of 20 young people to travel to the July 20 UC regents’ meeting in San Francisco to rally in defense of affirmative action.

The local activists joined 600 others from across the state to stage demonstrations outside the building where the trustees met and eventually voted to kill the policy.

“In the van on the way back, we were really depressed, but it gave us the strength we need to fight this,” said Caballeros, a member of Action Among Youth.

The coalition’s next steps include inviting other youth groups to join its efforts and organizing rallies and other activities to raise awareness of the issue and stress the importance of voting.

“A lot of my friends don’t know what affirmative action is and aren’t even registered to vote,” Caballeros said. “I think a lot of young people are like that.”

The coalition isn’t wasting any time. The three groups plan to set up information booths at the Melting Pot multicultural fair this weekend in Carson.

“It’s going to take a lot of work and determination,” Caballeros said. “But as one, we’ll be able to overcome this.”