Regents Should Reaffirm Affirmative Action

Now that Democratic Gov. Gray Davis has taken office, University of California regent William T. Bagley intends to ask his fellow regents to amend a 1995 resolution that eliminated race-sensitive factors in UC’s admission policies. Because the new governor is in a position to appoint four new regents to the 26-member board, that resolution seems to have a better chance of passage than it would have under Republican Gov. Pete Wilson.

But is it really necessary, especially in light of the 1996 passage of Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action measure that seems to set policy for all of California’s public institutions?

Answer: Yes.

It is unfortunate that the timing of Bagley’s proposal may make this appear to be a partisan issue. But of greater significance is whether the resolution and the incoming regents will help foster a new conversation on race as it affects an institution that, as the California Constitution states, is meant to be “entirely independent” of partisan politics. Whatever the final wording of the resolution, it must enhance UC’s credibility as an independent institution that is responsive to a more diverse Golden State.

At a minimum, this new resolution should address the view of Bagley and others that the 1995 anti-affirmative action policy undermines UC’s ability to actively execute its policy of diversity, which was adopted in 1988. That policy states that, as a public institution, UC must work to ensure that its student body “encompasses the broad diversity of cultural, racial, geographic and socioeconomic background characteristic of California.”

There are some in the UC community who believe that, when the anti-affirmative action measure was adopted in 1995, it was the intent of the board at the time to influence the qualification and passage of Proposition 209. Then-Lt. Gov. Davis, UC President Jack Peltason, all nine UC chancellors and the associations representing faculty and students agreed that the resolution’s passage was a step back to the days when campuses like UC Berkeley had a token number of Latino and African American students.

Both of us consider ourselves products of affirmative action efforts. One of us, a penniless Taiwanese immigrant student, came to the University of Louisville as a beneficiary of America’s post-World War II international openness. The other was recruited to enroll in USC as a direct result of Latino student protests. Both of us have gone on to receive doctorate degrees.

But in our personal journeys, we have confronted questions from a dark side of America that we believe justify today’s affirmative action policies. In the 1950s, for instance, where was a Chinese immigrant’s place in a Deep South world of black-white segregation? A decade later, how does a young Latino make sense of the shame felt in a predominantly Latino student body balkanized over gradations of race, language and culture at his East Los Angeles high school?

We have a democratic society that makes pitfalls par for the course in the search to balance equal opportunity with individual merit. In recent years, this has been made more difficult by an anti-diversity public resentment fueled by this decade’s early economic recession, growing Asian and Latino immigration and a politics of division.

That volatile mix resulted in divisiveness among the regents over UC’s affirmative action programs. Anecdotes about reverse discrimination and “race-based quotas” set the tone for board discussions. Grades and test scores--never the only criteria for admissions to any university in the world--were suggested as the sole yardstick for fairness. Isolated incidents of abuse or outmoded practices within an admissions process in which variables were constantly changing or even out of UC’s control, led to a sweeping resolution to replace “racial preferences” with a “colorblind” admissions.

Downplayed in the new board discourse was the search for ways to improve and refine UC’s efforts for greater campus diversity. Left lingering in the background of those board meetings were UC administration’s predictions--and last year’s reality--of 50%-60% declines in Latino and African American admissions at UCLA and UC Berkeley.

A revised regent resolution stressing university independence and emphasizing academic diversity would signal a new beginning for UC. It would do so by reestablishing a public mission that would be more responsive to California’s racial realities.

UC must prepare leaders to comprehend an increasingly complex society, including an understanding of those who are isolated or on the margins. Diversity, after all, is at the heart of America’s exploration of democracy. To use T.S. Eliot’s words, “The end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time.”