California's College Admission Policies Regarding Race (Guest Submission)
By: Sarah Son
California is one of the only eight states in the U.S. where race-conscious admission policies are illegal. Recently, the movement to repeal the state ban on affirmative action has been gaining momentum, with tensions rising following the death of George Floyd. Repealing the ban impacts the admission rate of several racial and ethic groups, as well as low-income students in California’s public universities. Doing this would abolish Proposition 209, which upon approval in November 1996, amended the state constitution to prohibit state governmental institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity, specifically in the areas of public employment, public contracting, and public education. But while advocates are doing this in hopes that the number of Blacks and Latinos in UC schools will rise, their opponents, mainly activists in the Asian community, say that they are fearful at the prospect that the percentage of Asian and Pacific Islanders admitted to UC schools will be significantly reduced. Currently they hold the largest share of UC undergraduate students in any racial group, at 33%. But if the ban is reverted, Jason Xu, vice president of the Silicon Valley Chinese Association Foundation, says that he expects the percentage of Asians/Pacific Islanders at UC schools will go from 33% to 15%, a cut of over half. “It may not happen the first year, but I think eventually, over five years, that will happen,” he says.
This change will not be easy for the admissions officers, either. "There's going to have to be some serious mindset work … to help professionals in admissions change their mindsets about Black students and their deservingness and readiness to succeed," said Shaun Harper, founder and executive director of the Race and Equity Center at the University of Southern California. UC Board of Regents Chair John A. Pérez says, “To say that a color-blind model is the right structure for our university is not to say that we’re color blind, but that we’re blind to systemic racism and other structural challenges. It is to deny the humanity of those who live with those challenges day in and day out.”
At UC Berkeley, the most sought-after campus at the time, the percentage of Black, Latino and Native American students admitted to the university dropped 55 percent in one year following the implementation of the restrictions. African American students alone saw a drop in offers by 64 percent, according to a press release issued at the time. UC Berkeley law school, for example, was one of the most diverse in the nation prior to Prop. 209. According to UC Regents Vice Chair Cecilia Estolano, who was a student there at the time, the law school enrolled a single African American student in the year following Prop. 209, and that student had deferred admission from the year before. “We’ve got a generation of research that documents the harmful impacts,” of Prop. 209, Regent Estolano said. “We’ve studied it, we know the impediments it’s created, we know how difficult it has been to live up to our ideals with these impediments in place. This is our opportunity to right a historic wrong.”
Yet, UC still has a way to go before it reflects the demographics of California high school graduates: 59 percent of California high school graduates in 2016 identified as Black, Latino, Native American or Pacific Islander, while those same groups accounted for just 37 percent of UC freshmen who were California residents.
However, Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation in Washington, D.C. is concerned about low-income students who may be disadvantaged from the repeal. Kahlenberg, an opposer of the repeal, noted that UC over the past 25 years “has sought to create racial diversity indirectly by giving a leg up to economically disadvantaged students — many of whom are African American and Latino. If Proposition 209 is repealed, he foresees the UC system “probably reverting to doing what most elite universities do: admitting relatively wealthy students of all colors.” As a result, the student body is likely to become richer than it is today, said Kahlenberg. “Because it is much cheaper to provide racial preferences to upper middle class Latino and African American students than it is to do the hard work of recruiting economically disadvantaged and working-class Latino and African American students, I fear that many of these progressive reforms could be diluted if 209 is repealed,” he wrote in an email to EdSource.
These are the voices and opinions of our society, and it’s both clear and expected that they differ.
Depending on your perspective and status, the news of the repeal may be appealing, disappointing, or it might not even have anything to do with you at all. Is it possible to agree that this was the correct next step to take?
https://edsource.org/2020/california-universities-prepare-for-possible-return-of-affirmative-action-in-admissions/634178
https://www.educationdive.com/news/california-is-closer-to-restoring-affirmative-action-in-college-admissions/580584/
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-regents-declare-their-support-end-race-blind-admissions