UCLA Protesters Demand Admission Reforms

More than 100 UCLA students demanded Thursday that the university reform its admissions process to boost the number of underrepresented minority students on campus.

Students wore paper bags over their heads to symbolize how the admissions process is “erasing diversity” on campus and clogged the telephone lines of UC Regent Norman Pattiz to complain. The protest was prompted by admission figures released last week that show the lowest admission rates of African American, Latino and Native American students at UCLA in seven years.

UCLA administrators blamed the drop, from 16.5% last year to 15.2% this year, on Proposition 209. The 1996 voter-approved initiative bars the state’s public colleges and other agencies from considering race in admissions or employment.

“Prop. 209 is excruciatingly rigid,” said Janina Montero, UCLA’s vice chancellor of student affairs. “We share the concern. This is a tremendous and painful moment for all of us.”

Last fall some UCLA students approached faculty to create a joint diversity “workgroup” to recommend changes to the college’s admissions department in December.

Jenny Wood, president of the Undergraduate Student Assn., said she and the rest of the workgroup are studying Proposition 209 and its effect on admissions. A number of African American students came to Thursday’s rally dressed in black -- a statement of “mourning for the brothers and sisters who weren’t admitted,” said Karume James, chairman of the college’s Afrikan Student Union.

African Americans represented 2% of California students admitted to UCLA this year, down from 2.4% last year. The statistics do not include students from out of state.

“This is a diversity crisis,” James said. “This campus is going to be a battleground, and I’m going out fighting.”

James and others led students in chanting: “Hey, hey, ho, ho, racist admission has got to go” and “Si se puede,” which in Spanish is “Yes, it can be done.”

The proportion of underrepresented minorities in the UC system rose to 21.7%, up from 20.6% last year. But three UC campuses -- Los Angeles, Merced and San Diego -- showed drops in underrepresented minority admission, with UCLA showing the steepest decline.

UC spokesman Ricardo Vazquez said he was unaware of protests at other UC campuses. But UC Berkeley officials said some students at a news conference last week expressed the wish that minority numbers were higher.

Wood said Thursday’s rally was only the beginning of a series of gatherings student leaders are planning. Minority student organizations are drafting a list of demands, including a chancellor committed to diversity, she said.

“We need a chancellor willing to open doors to diversity,” said Lucero Chavez, chair of the Student-Initiated Access Committee. “We need a chancellor who will not only admit there’s a diversity problem but take steps.”

Students also are working on a film showing the need for more minority students on campus, titled “Access Granted? Admissions Crisis: Here. Now. UCLA.”

In the film, UCLA law student George Turner criticizes UCLA for trying to be “colorblind” and focusing too much on academic achievement in admissions.

“They call it a colorblind campus. I call it colorless because that’s what it is,” he said. “How much of the building has to be on fire before someone says, ‘The building is on fire?’ ”