Less Diversity Seen as UC Preferences End

The number of underrepresented minorities enrolled at UCLA and UC Berkeley could drop 50% to 70% once the University of California’s rollback of affirmative action takes effect, while white and Asian American enrollment would grow, according to two estimates released Tuesday.

In reports commissioned by the UC provost, the university’s two most prestigious campuses calculated the potential impact of the Board of Regents’ decision to ban the use of race and gender preferences in undergraduate admissions. The reports also assessed the potential effects of Proposition 209, the November ballot initiative that would ban state and local government affirmative action programs for women and minorities.

Their conclusions--what UC Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien called an expected “profound” decrease in minority enrollment--provide ammunition for both sides of the volatile issue.

Supporters of affirmative action said the reports provided a dismal glimpse of a less diverse future.

“The quality of the UC experience itself is enhanced by having to interact with, debate with students of different backgrounds,” said Winston C. Doby, UCLA’s vice chancellor for student affairs. “I do believe that UCLA and UC Berkeley in the short run will suffer as a consequence of these outcomes. They will be less diverse. And qualitatively speaking, we lose.”

But Ward Connerly, a UC regent who spearheaded the university’s affirmative action ban and who heads the Proposition 209 campaign, said the data proves his contention that racial preferences give undue advantage to some less qualified minorities.

“This is the most tacit admission of the extent that we are using race for underrepresented students that one could ever find,” said Connerly. “That speaks volumes, I think, about why 209 was probably needed.”

The UC regents’ July 1995 decision to ban the use of race and gender preferences in undergraduate admissions has yet to be implemented--it will first affect students applying for entry to the spring 1998 term. But if Proposition 209 is approved by voters next month, students who wish to enroll in UC in the fall 1997 term may be affected.

In order to simulate the potential impacts, officials at UCLA and UC Berkeley looked at two freshman classes--the 1995-96 and 1996-97 entering year--and predicted how their makeup would be different if race and gender preferences were eliminated. Both campuses reported that enrollment of under-represented minorities would have been 50% to 70% lower in those combined classes.

UCLA officials found that for the class entering in 1996-97, the elimination of race and gender preferences would have decreased the number of African Americans--now at 250--to between 75 and 115. Latinos would drop from 761 to between 240 and 365. Native Americans would drop from 38 today to between 15 and 20.

In the same analysis, more whites and Asian Americans would enroll at UCLA. The 1,422 Asian and Filipino Americans who are part of UCLA’s current freshman class would grow to between 1,705 and 1,765. White freshmen, at 1,236 this year, would have grown to between 1,470 and 1,565 students.

UC Berkeley’s analysis of impacts found similar results, with African Americans--at 252 in the 1996-97 entering class--dropping to between 96 and 135. Latinos, at 570, dropped in the analysis to between 233 and 327. Native Americans, now 55, fell to between 18 and 25. Asian American freshmen at Berkeley, now 1,474, grew to between 1,756 and 1,831 under the scenario, while white freshmen, at 1,135 in the newest class, would have risen to between 1,205 and 1,256.

The estimates assumed that the number of students who did not meet UC’s minimum academic requirements and who were admitted by exception--less than 3% of freshmen on each campus--would remain constant. UCLA noted that more than 60% of such exceptions are athletes.

Both campuses also assumed that so-called “yield rates”--the percentage of admitted students who actually enroll--would also remain constant in each ethnic group.

Both reports cautioned that there are several trends--not factored into their reports--that may drive minority enrollment down further. For example, UCLA’s overall applicant pool grew 10% between 1995 and this year, while applications from underrepresented minorities increased 4%. If minorities’ presence in the applicant pool continues to shrink, UCLA’s report said, “it could lead to further declines for underrepresented groups.”

Similarly, the UC Berkeley report noted that because of a higher yield rate in recent years--a higher percentage of those admitted actually deciding to enroll--the campus will probably reduce its enrollment targets in the coming years.

“That, in turn, may increase the competition for admission to Berkeley and may reduce the numbers of admits and enrollees for each racial/ethnic group,” the report concluded.

The reports made public Tuesday were compiled at the request of UC Provost C. Judson King, who in August sent a letter to all nine chancellors seeking what he called “relevant data” for a systemwide study of the impact of Proposition 209 and the regents’ action. No systemwide report was ever written, however, because officials judged some of the campus reports to be “too preliminary and tentative” to be valuable.

Connerly said the UC Berkeley and UCLA reports were “filled with a lot of conjecture.” He called the timing of their release “totally political” and accused UC officials of letting information “leak out.”

“They’re trying to get the university involved in frightening blacks and Chicanos [into] thinking that with the passage of 209 we will never see another sunset in California,” he said. “That’s the kind of hysteria they’re trying to create.”

UCLA and UC Berkeley officials said they only released the reports after media inquiries. While acknowledging that simulations are never foolproof, they said they were confident in their analyses.

“There’s no question that the magnitude of the impact that we report is very, very real and not tentative at all,” said UCLA’s Doby.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Impact at UCLA

How this year’s freshman class at UCLA, which was chosen using race and gender preferences, among others, would compare to a freshman class chosen without those affirmative action measures (shaded area designates range).

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With affirmative action Without affirmative action Blacks 250 students 75-115 students Latinos 761 students 240-365 students Asian Americans 1,422 students 1,705-1,765 students Whites 1,236 students 1,470-1,565 students

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Note: Some groups not shown

Source: UCLA Forecast Admissions File