Minority Students Fear Closed Doors at UC : Education: Regents’ decision to end affirmative action worries some who plan to transfer from local community colleges.

Many of Ventura County’s minority community college students fear that their chances of entering the University of California system are threatened now that the UC Board of Regents has struck down its affirmative action policies.

And community college officials, still unsure of how the recent action will affect those planning to transfer, have no ready answers for anxious Latinos, blacks and women affected by the decision.

After talking with her friends, Oxnard College student Suzie Gomez thinks the district should prepare for declining enrollment.

“If you think about it, a lot of people who go to community colleges would think they can’t transfer to a UC now,” said Gomez, who hopes to transfer from Oxnard to UCLA to study communications. “They might think, ‘If I’m going to finish my [associate in arts] degree, and I can’t get into a higher university, why am I doing this at all?’ ”

Officials in the Ventura County Community College District said they are not dropping or adding classes in anticipation of the changes at UC campuses.

Under an implicit agreement between UC regents and the community colleges, students completing a core curriculum at the community colleges with a strong academic performance are admitted to a UC campus, though not necessarily their campus of choice.

Ronald Jackson, director of student services at Oxnard College, said the district’s biggest challenge is to change the perception that the abolition of affirmative action at the UC level presents a major obstacle for minority students.

“That really frightens me,” Jackson said. “It really frightens me to think that a student would say, ‘Why should I even care now?’ or ‘I won’t be able to go to a university.’ I want to discourage that type of thinking. When you admit a student to a UC, race is not the only thing considered.”

Jackson said the UC system will continue to take into account an applicant’s socioeconomic level and other individual circumstances as criteria for admission.

“It just so happens that many of the students who meet the criteria of low-income and non-college-educated families just happen to be students of color, so I don’t think it will have much of an impact,” Jackson said.

But Gil Ramirez, a transfer counselor in the district, said the changes at UC are already on students’ minds. Students have come into his office daily since the regents’ July 20 vote, asking if they should still apply to a UC campus.

“I tell them, ‘If you want to make changes in your life and your family’s, this is the place to start, right here at school,’ ” Ramirez said. “ ‘You’ve got to work hard no matter what happens.’ ”

Student Emma Posadas fears that she will have to stay at Oxnard Community College longer if she does not transfer before January, 1997, when the UC system’s admission process no longer takes into account race, religion, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin.

“It’s going to be more pressure on me,” said Posadas, the daughter of Mexican immigrants.

She hopes to follow the educational path of her brothers--one has an engineering degree from UC Santa Barbara and the other heads to a UC campus this fall.

“I don’t see every person having the same kinds of rights anymore,” she said. “Already we’re discriminated against for the littlest things.”

Fourteen regents, including Gov. Pete Wilson, who is the board president, voted to eliminate the longtime affirmative action policy. Their position was that changing the rules would result in all applicants being treated fairly and equally, that merit would be considered over race or other factors. Ten regents opposed the change.

Over the past 14 years, the proportion of white male students in the UC system dropped from 40% to 24%. The number of students covered by affirmative action has risen from 11% to 20%.

State officials say that the move to strike down affirmative action could violate state education code provisions that call for community colleges to steer underrepresented groups to higher education.

Meanwhile, the state’s community colleges are waiting for word from their own Board of Governors on changes to affirmative action.

The board voted in March to review the community college policy when members realized the issue was becoming a hot political topic. They plan to release their findings at a meeting in September, which will be held at the Ventura County Community College District meeting room.

That meeting was set in Ventura to honor the late Thomas Lakin, who was the district’s chancellor until he died of a rare disease in November.

Chancellor David Mertes of the California Community Colleges said any changes to the policy must be approved by the Legislature.

He does not foresee any changes to the community college admissions policy.

“I do not see that there will be an impact on us to do something different because there is nothing in our admissions policies that is detrimental to students,” Mertes said. “Every student is treated the same.”

Jackson, the Oxnard director of student services, said UC’s dismantling of affirmative action programs will have little effect on community college admissions because their doors are open to anyone who is 18 with a high school diploma, general equivalency degree or demonstrated interest in the school.

“We are an institution of last resort,” Jackson said. “Anyone who will profit from the system can come here.”