1 - Open Computing Facility at UC Berkeley



1. Percentage admissions policies fail to increase diversity in higher education

, November 20, 2002

"Percentage plans not diversifying campuses"

Programs that guarantee admission to public universities for top high school graduates in California, Texas and Florida have not made the campuses more diverse, a draft report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights says.

Minority students in those three states are faring worse or no better than they were under affirmative action programs, according to the report.

"If percentage plans grow in popularity, it is inevitable that the number of minority students attending the most prestigious public universities will decrease," Commission Chairwoman Mary Frances Berry said in releasing the commission's findings Tuesday.

The percentage plans guarantee admission to the top 4 percent of graduates at California high schools, the top 10 percent in Texas and the top 20 percent in Florida.

In Texas, for example, the report showed fewer blacks and Hispanics were admitted and enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin in 2001 than in 1996, before a federal court outlawed affirmative action in admissions at public universities.

Florida's state university system showed an increase in black and Hispanic students since the advent of Gov. Jeb Bush's program to end affirmative action in 2000. But at the University of Florida, the most selective state institution, their numbers dropped.

The California university system said last month that minority enrollment at the medical and law schools also is up over last year, but still is lower than it was before the passage of Proposition 209, which outlawed affirmative action.

2. Minority enrollment declining with percentage admissions policies

Washington Post, February 11, 2003; Page A02

"College 'Percent' Plans May Not Help Diversity"

College admissions plans that admit a specific percentage of top high school graduates to state universities are not effective in achieving racial diversity -- particularly at highly selective schools, according to two new reports by Harvard University researchers.

But minority enrollment tends to be lower at the most selective schools, the reports said, while, overall, public universities have not kept pace with the burgeoning racial diversity in those states.

The reports released yesterday by the Harvard Civil Rights Project also found that percent plans, which President Bush has touted as a legally acceptable form of "race-neutral" affirmative action, are most effective when linked with race-conscious recruitment, financial aid and support programs. Also, the reports said, the percent plans do not address admissions to graduate and professional schools or selective private colleges.

"To suggest that these percent plans offer a good alternative to race-conscious admissions programs, to our mind, is very dangerous," said Patricia Marin, a Harvard researcher and co-author of one of the reports.

After race-conscious affirmative action was outlawed in California in 1996 ...

the number of black and Hispanic students has declined sharply at the state's premier universities, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of California at Los Angeles.

In 1995, for example, blacks made up 6.7 percent of Berkeley's freshman class while Hispanics accounted for 16.9 percent; by last school year, 3.9 percent of the freshmen were black, while Hispanics accounted for 10.8 percent of Berkeley's freshman class. The declines have been less precipitous at the premier schools in Texas and Florida, which are far less selective than Berkeley and UCLA.

3. Low medical school admissions for minorities

UCSF Day Break News, 6 October 1999

"UC Task Force to Examine Decline in Minority Medical School Enrollment"

12.5 percent drop from last year in the number of underrepresented minorities entering UC’s medical schools this fall. Only 63 (11 percent) of the UC system’s 569 first-year medical students are underrepresented minorities (African-American, Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, Native American).

At the UCSF School of Medicine, enrollment of first-year underrepresented students dropped for the fourth consecutive year. This fall’s entering class includes only 19 students from underrepresented groups

4. Minority enrollment down at U. of Texas

, January 16, 2003

"Minority enrollment down at U. of Texas"

Minority enrollment at the University of Texas flagship Austin campus is still lower than it was years ago, before a court barred the consideration of race in admissions.

In the years immediately before a federal appeals court struck down the university law school's affirmative-action program, each freshman class included about 500 blacks, or 4 percent of new students.

In 1997, the year after the ruling, only 296 new students, or 2.3 percent, were black. Hispanic freshmen declined too, but less dramatically.

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