Black Freshman Enrollment Expected to Drop at Fla. College

Black freshman enrollment at the University of Florida is expected to be down by nearly half this year under Gov. Jeb Bush’s ban on racial preference in public university admissions.

Blacks represented nearly 12% of the freshman class last year, but the class starting this month will be only 6% to 7% black, said officials at the state university.

“This is disappointing,” Provost David Colburn said. “We were a segregated institution for a long time. And for a long time after that we were an almost lily-white institution.”

Colburn said the decline would have been worse if the university hadn’t overhauled its application process and boosted minority recruitment efforts.

Minority enrollments at the state’s other 10 universities appear to be holding steady or rising slightly, school presidents reported to the governor last week.

Bush announced in 1999 his “One Florida” plan to remove affirmative action from state agencies. Critics of the policy have warned it would lead to fewer minorities enrolling.