Protest Over UCLA Law School ‘Resegregation’

Alarmed that only two blacks are among the 286 new faces this fall at UCLA Law School, students and professors walked out of class Thursday vowing to help end what they labeled the “resegregation” of their school.

Protesters urged law school admissions officials to adopt a more “holistic” approach to recruiting minorities in order to counter the effects of Proposition 209--the 1996 statewide ballot measure that bars racial and gender considerations in state hiring, contracting and public university admissions.

Students demanded that members of four law school minority groups be given “significant decision-making power” in evaluating future law school applications.

During a sometimes emotional two-hour “teach-in” on the law school entrance steps, the students also called for more recruitment in minority communities and for subsidized law school admissions test preparation for “disadvantaged applicants.”

“It’s very difficult--there are times I feel isolated and excluded, an outcast from my classmates,” said Crystal James. She and Lena Hines are UCLA’s only two first-year African American law students.

UCLA’s incoming law school class has 17 Latino students, 66 Asian Americans, 126 whites and one Native American. The university was not able to ascertain the ethnicity of the remaining 74 students.

By contrast, the 1996 class that enrolled before Proposition 209 had 19 blacks, 45 Latinos, 48 Asian Americans, five Native Americans and 188 whites or those whose ethnicity was unknown.

Law school officials said that not only are fewer minorities being accepted but also, as in the past, many of those who do gain admission choose other schools. This year, 233 blacks applied, 18 were admitted but just two enrolled. In 1996, 399 black students applied, 104 were admitted and 19 enrolled.

A parade of professors and students expressing outrage Thursday at the declining minority enrollment said the law school’s lack of diversity is having a negative effect on everybody.

They said UCLA must make drastic changes in its recruitment and admission policies if it is going to lure minorities away from local private law schools and from out-of-state law schools that still utilize race-based affirmative action admission policies.

“The real world has people of color in it. You can’t teach in a segregated atmosphere--it just can’t be done,” said professor Gary Blasi. He criticized what he called an overreliance on a standardized exam, the commonly used Law School Admission Test.

“The LSAT predicts first-year grades, not whether you’ll be a good trial lawyer like Johnnie Cochran,” he said. “It just doesn’t accurately reflect people’s potential.”

Listening from the back of a noontime crowd of about 200 was law school Dean Jon Varat. Later, he said that he is unhappy with the lack of diversity and that steps have been taken to change the situation.

Some UCLA law professors have volunteered to conduct Saturday study sessions to help minorities from local colleges and universities prepare for law school, he said.

The school is asking local legal groups to help pay for free LSAT preparation courses for minority students. And it is asking alumni to help recruit minorities, he said.

But it is against University of California rules for students to vote on the admission of other students, Varat said.

“The faculty and I have the same view as do the students as far as diversity is concerned,” he said. “I’m looking for solutions that are lawful and effective.”

One demonstrator chided the largely white crowd for not getting involved sooner.

“Educational segregation is the fault of no one here,” the demonstrator, black third-year law student Nancy Freeman, said sarcastically.

“Feel free to tune me out. This is not your fault,” she said. And the fact that black law professors are rare--but black defendants in cases taught in law class are common--”is the fault of no one here,” she said.

A sobbing second-year black student, Radiah Rondon, hugged Freeman after her talk.

“Thank you, thank you,” Rondon said. “You spoke for me.”