Fewer Blacks and Latinos Enroll at UC

The number of blacks planning to enroll at University of California campuses has dropped by 24% and the number of Latinos by 5% in the first year after the state’s premier public universities abolished racial preferences in admissions.

The declines, as expected, were particularly pronounced at the most competitive campuses, such as UC Berkeley, where only 98 African Americans will join 3,562 other students who have agreed to register as freshmen in the fall.

That’s a 62% drop from the number of blacks who enrolled at Berkeley last September. Latinos there dropped 46%.

UCLA also showed significant declines in black and Latino students who will join its freshman class: Of the 4,267 entering freshmen, only 131 are African American--a 40% drop compared to last year--and 458 are Latino, a 24% drop.

But three of the eight undergraduate campuses, UC Irvine, UC Riverside and UC Santa Cruz, showed double-digit increases in the number of blacks and Latinos, indicating a redistribution of students who in earlier years might have landed a spot at Berkeley or UCLA.

UC President Richard C. Atkinson said he wants to see these kinds of results at all campuses. “I’m uneasy that UCLA and Berkeley have had drops of this sort,” he said, referring to figures released Wednesday. “We clearly have to rethink some things.”

Still, UC officials were relieved that the overall numbers had not plunged further, given the tantalizing offers many of the minority students have had from private colleges and universities.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl suggested that the decline would have been much greater if UC officials had not mounted an aggressive campaign to encourage minority students to enroll.

“These students are in such demand we were afraid that many of them would choose not to come to Berkeley,” Berdahl said. “Given that there was a lot of negative publicity [about the ending of affirmative action on UC campuses], we beat the odds.”

At UC Irvine, this fall’s freshman class will include 25% more minority students than last year’s--an increase to 458 students from 366. That represents a 29% increase in the number of African Americans, a 144% increase in American Indians and a 38% increase in Chicanos.

The only underrepresented group showing a probable decline in enrollment is Latinos, down 14%. The university defines Chicanos as Mexican Americans and Latinos as those with backgrounds associated with Spanish-speaking countries other than Mexico. Other groups showing likely enrollment declines are Asian Americans, down nearly 1%, and whites, down 4.5%.

Manuel N. Gomez, UC Irvine’s vice chancellor for student services, attributed the expected increase in minority enrollment to intense efforts by the university to recruit those students and make them feel at home.

“We had a very unified commitment by faculty, students and staff working in concert to convey that we would welcome their enrollment at UCI,” he said.

Among other things, Gomez said, the campus sent representatives on a series of recruitment trips last fall to underserved areas of the state. Then, he said, after admissions were announced, “we visited the high schools and talked to the admitted students to invite them to our campus. Many families said that our personalization made them choose us.”

One student who heard the call was Dwight Parry, a music student at Ventura High School who has a 4.0 grade-point average and is one-eighth Native American. “I got called a few times,” Parry said, “both from the School of Music and the administration. I thought they were very friendly. Some campuses are so cold that they don’t even want to talk to you.”

And Karen Fleming, a 17-year-old African American student from San Leandro, said that she sensed a more hospitable environment for minorities at UCI than at some other campuses.

“Nobody looked at me like I was getting a break,” she said. “I felt a community feeling. I felt like a whole person, not just a number or a quota that somebody had to put into UC Irvine to get federal aid or something.”

The figures released Wednesday were the last stage in the admissions process that began last November when a record number of high school seniors--including all-time highs for blacks and Latinos--applied to the University of California.

UC campuses in April offered admission to only a fraction of those students competing for a limited number of slots. Many of the campuses accepted fewer blacks, Latinos and Native Americans than they had in more than a decade.

To slow the hemorrhage of the remaining blacks and Latinos to competing schools, UC chancellors fanned out to high schools to woo admitted students, alumni held lavish receptions, and UC students made thousands of welcoming phone calls.

As a result, Berkeley managed to avoid the much-feared “total wipeout” that struck Berkeley’s law school last fall when not one of the 15 accepted African American students decided to enroll.

UCLA and other campuses actually persuaded a larger proportion of admitted minority students to agree to enroll this year than they had last year.

“We think the calls, the school visits, opening our campus made a difference,” said Ted Mitchell, a UCLA vice chancellor. “And the parties didn’t hurt either.”

But the problem remained, he said, that UCLA was courting a much smaller pool of blacks and Latinos--because fewer were admitted without affirmative action.

“We are doing the best we can, given the law we have to work with,” said Rae Lee Siporin, UCLA’s admissions director. “The numbers are not as bad as they might have been. That’s the only bright side.”

The drops seen at UCLA and Berkeley were somewhat offset by increases at UC Riverside, which saw a 33% increase in Latinos and a 28% rise in blacks who will enter as freshmen. UC Irvine registered 29% more African Americans than last year and 21% more Latinos. UC Santa Cruz reported a 25% increase in Latinos and 17% increase in blacks.

Overall, the UC system reported its largest freshman class ever--27,425 students who said they intend to enroll in the fall. Those numbers will “melt” a bit during the summer, as some students change their minds for various reasons, and others are turned away because they fail classes in their senior year of high school.

In contrast to the overall rising numbers of UC-bound freshmen, the proportion of the class that is either black, Latino or American Indian is the lowest it has been in at least half a dozen years.

Of those who identified their race, Asian Americans made up the largest ethnic group--35.4% of the incoming freshman class. Whites followed close behind with 35.3% of the class, Latinos with 11.7%, African Americans 2.8% and Native Americans 0.7%.

UC officials said they were not sure if Asian Americans have actually eclipsed whites as the largest ethnic group, given that 14.1% of students declined to state their ethnicity.

UC San Diego has determined that 97% of those who withhold their ethnicity are either white or Asian American.

Admission directors also caution that what appears as a decline in white or Asian Americans at some campuses is misleading. Many of these students, they point out, are actually hidden among the swelling numbers of students who do not report their race.

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Times staff writer David Haldane contributed to this report.

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UC’s Freshman Class

The number of African Americans, Latinos and American Indians intending to enroll this fall has dropped this year, the first undergraduate class in decades assembled without any preference for race or ethnicity. Meanwhile, the number of students who “declined to state” their race has jumped this year. UC officials have determined that the vast majority of those who did not report racial information were either white or Asian American. So admission directors caution that what appears as a decline in white or Asian Americans at some campuses is misleading.

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SYSTEMWIDE ’97 ’98 % Change American Indian 207 197 -4.8% African American 998 756 -24.0% Latino 3,394 3,206 -5.5% Asian American 9,529 9,711 +1.9% White/Other 10,772 9,690 -10.0% Decline to State 1,233 3,863 +213.3%

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University ’97 ’98 % Change BERKELEY American Indian 24 14 -41.6% African American 260 98 -62.3% Latino 492 264 -46.3% Asian American 1,478 1,527 +3.3% White/Other 1,095 1,131 +3.2% Decline to State 280 626 +123.6% DAVIS American Indian 38 39 -2.6% African American 107 104 -2.8% Latino 408 396 -2.9% Asian American 1,296 1,364 +5.2% White/Other 1,678 1,375 -18.0% Decline to State 152 518 +240.7% IRVINE American Indian 9 22 -144.4% African American 55 71 +29.0 Latino 302 365 +20.8% Asian American 1,803 1,792 -0.6% White/Other 737 704 -4.4% Decline to State 105 372 +254.2% UCLA American Indian 40 15 -62.5% African American 219 131 -40.1% Latino 603 458 -24.0% Asian American 1,544 1,700 -10.1% White/Other 1,291 1,351 +4.6% Decline to State 254 612 +140.9% RIVERSIDE American Indian 7 14 -100.0% African American 88 123 -28.4% Latino 337 500 -32.6% Asian American 1,038 1,053 +1.4% White/Other 481 493 +2.4% Decline to State 53 186 +250.9% SAN DIEGO American Indian 28 22 -21.4% African American 80 61 -23.7% Latino 381 300 -21.2% Asian American 1,310 1,320 +0.7% White/Other 1,510 1,379 -8.6% Decline to State 199 518 +160.3% SANTA BARBARA American Indian 41 44 +7.3% African American 137 109 -20.4% Latino 591 573 -3.0% Asian American 691 534 -22.7% White/Other 2,584 2,060 -20.2% Decline to State 50 555 +1010.0% SANTA CRUZ American Indian 20 27 +35.0% African American 52 61 +17.3% Latino 280 350 +25.0% Asian American 369 421 +14.0% White/Other 1,396 1,197 -14.2% Decline to State 140 476 +240.0%

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Source: University of California

Researched by NONA YATES / Los Angeles Times