Regents May Reconsider UC Affirmative Action Ban

University of California regents, who today hold their first meeting in 16 years without a Republican governor, are poised to plunge into two potentially contentious debates--over minority admissions and the university’s role in training public school teachers.

Gov. Gray Davis has called on the regents to approve a new policy of admitting all students who graduate in the top 4% of their high school classes. That move is almost certain to pass in the next few months. Although it has garnered much attention, it would have little if any impact on the enrollment of more Latinos and African Americans at UC’s elite campuses.

Some regents have hatched another, more provocative plan: to repeal the university’s ban on affirmative action.

Such a repeal would be in part a symbolic gesture, given that Proposition 209’s ban on racial preferences takes precedence over university policy.

But a recent court decision narrowly interpreting Proposition 209 could give UC admissions officers more flexibility--if they chose to use it.

“It would provide us with some leverage down the road as Prop. 209 works its way through the courts,” said Eugene Garcia, dean of UC Berkeley’s School of Education and a supporter of affirmative action.

And even the symbolism of repealing the ban could be important.

“We have tainted ourselves, rightly or wrongly, that we are adverse to diversity,” said Regent William Bagley. The ban, pushed through by former Gov. Pete Wilson and his appointed regents such as Ward Connerly, has sent the wrong message to black and Latino students and harmed the university’s reputation, Bagley said.

Bagley said he has counted the votes and believes that the Board of Regents could reverse its 1995 ban on all forms of affirmative action, depending on how Davis fills four vacancies.

Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), whose position makes him a UC regent, said he would vote to lift the ban and do anything else that would open up the university to more minority students.

But, he cautioned, he doesn’t want to waste time on symbolic gestures. “I’m interested in real change, not just form over substance.”

President Richard C. Atkinson, who also would vote for lifting the ban, believes that it would pass without much notice. But several campus chancellors worry that a repeal would stir up student protesters who have been urging them to ignore law and policy by independently resuming affirmative action--a defiant act that the chancellors have declined to do. They expect even more pressure if the ban no longer were against university policy.

Davis, who as a board member voted against the ban, has been characteristically cautious. He has called efforts to revive affirmative action at the university “an exercise in futility,” and said he doesn’t want to defy the will of the 54% majority of California voters who approved Proposition 209. However, supporters of the change believe that he has left the door open to discuss the issue.

Resolution of the issue could take many months, Bagley said. “We don’t want to prevail on a vote of 13 to 12, but have a few of those who followed Pete Wilson errantly on his presidential quest, to change their votes,” he said.

Meanwhile, Davis has pushed the idea of admitting 4% of each high school class as a way to “promote diversity.” The UC system now throws all students into a statewide competition for seats--admitting about the top 12% statewide--no matter if they come from the best suburban high school or the poorest urban one.

UC officials have been studying this proposal for more than a year and have determined that the new formula would lead to acceptance of about 3,500 to 4,000 students who otherwise would not be UC-eligible. Only about 700 of the newly eligible students would be African American, Latino or American Indian, whom the university considers “underrepresented minorities.” Most of the new students would be white or Asian American.

Moreover, the plan would only guarantee those students a spot at one of the eight undergraduate campuses, not necessarily the school of their choice. The change would have virtually no impact on admissions to campuses such as UC Berkeley and UCLA, which already turn aside the majority of UC-eligible applicants and which have had major declines in the percentages of black and Latino freshmen since the affirmative action ban took effect.

On teacher training, Davis has called on the nine-campus research university to get more involved in lending its expertise and prestige to an undervalued profession.

Historically, the university trained about 11% of the state’s public schoolteachers. But that percentage has shrunk over the years to about 4%, as the university has stressed research and the training of master’s and doctoral candidates. Working with Atkinson, the governor is pushing several proposals to reverse that trend.

Atkinson said he wants the university to double the percentage of UC-trained teachers, although he expects some resistance from faculty who prefer high-end research.

So far, Davis has budgeted three new programs, including a $12-million program to set up summer institutes that would help 6,000 beginning teachers learn how to teach reading, and another that would train experienced teachers to become principals of hard-to-staff schools.

A third program is designed to turn about 400 additional UC students into teachers each year. Under this 15-month program, recent graduates would get an intensive summer of training and spend a year as a teacher-in-training at a public school, followed by another summer session at the UC campus. All UC fees would be covered by scholarships, provided the graduates pledge to work for two years in schools in poor communities.

“All this will give us a bigger role in teacher training,” Atkinson said. “We are really quite enthusiastic.”