Minority Representation Gains At The University of California Are Overstated.

The Tomas Rivera Policy Institute refutes the University of California’s reported gains in minority freshman admissions. The study finds that the University’s use of raw number reporting overstates underrepresented minority admissions gains. The institute stresses undergraduate applications and their corresponding acceptance rates are also needed to acquire a complete understanding of gains for these students.

The TRPI study, The Reality of Race-Neutral Admissions at the University of California: Turning the Tide or Turning Them Away, examines the five years since affirmative action was in effect at the University of California and has found acceptance rates have fallen sharply for Latinos from 64% in 1997 to 47% in 2002 and by more than 20 percentage points for African Americans — from 57% to 36% in that same time period.

The study finds that despite the UC’s attempt to enroll a student body that represents the state’s diversity, Black and Latino acceptance rates are not growing commensurate with the number of applications being submitted by these students.

“Rhetoric and reality don’t match,” said Harry Pachon, Ph.D., president of TRPI. “In examining freshman admissions and applications, what emerges is the fact that there has been a significant decline in acceptance rates for Blacks and Latinos since 1998. At the same time, the number of minority high school graduates in California completing UC requirements has increased steadily.” In comparing the racial and ethnic backgrounds of the UC student body before and after race-neutral admissions polices were put in place, it becomes clear that White non-Hispanic and Asian students have made the most gains. For example, at UC Berkeley, the University of California’s flagship campus, White non-Hispanic freshmen accounted for 31 percent of all acceptances in 1997, growing to 33 percent in 2002 and Asian students grew from 35 percent to 40 percent in that same time period. However, Latinos and Blacks fell behind: Latinos consisted of 14.6 percent of all freshman acceptances at UC Berkeley in 1997, but only 13 percent in 2002, while Blacks fell from 7.8 to 3.9 percent during the same time period.

The impact of race-neutral admissions is most profound when examining admissions at the flagship campuses of the UC system, UC Berkeley and UCLA:

— Black admittances at Berkeley dropped from 545 to 290 between 1997 and 2002; Latino admittances dropped from 1,246 to 964.

— The same picture emerges for UCLA (located in the metropolitan area with the largest concentration of Latinos in the nation): Latino admittances dropped from 1,476 in 1997 to 1,322 in 2002, and for Blacks, an even more dramatic drop from 488 in 1997 to 316 in 2002.

— 122 more African American students applied for admittance at UC Berkeley in 2002 than in 2001, yet the number admitted to the freshman class dropped from 293 to 290 in that same time period.

— Even with an increase of almost 300 additional Latino applications in 2002, only one additional Latino student was admitted to UC Berkeley, thus resulting in a decline in acceptance rate from 27% in 2001 to 25% in 2002.

The University of California is a world-class system of higher education, publicly supported by California taxpayers in an increasing ethnically diversified state. In order for the UC to maintain its established standing among California policymakers and opinion leaders, the following actions are recommended.

— The UC should conduct independent evaluations on a campus-by-campus basis of outreach programs and efforts to increase student diversity and publicly report these findings on an annual basis to the UC Board of Regents as well as to the California legislature.

— Since present funding has not proven adequate for current diversity outreach, the California State Legislature should consider significant increases and continuous funding for UC outreach programs.

— Extrapolations of present and future student diversity among UC campuses should be undertaken to assess the potentials of perceived stratification of UC campuses among racial/ethnic lines.

Founded in 1985, the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI) advances critical, insightful thinking on key issues affecting Latino communities through objective, policy-relevant research, and its implications, for the betterment of the nation.

For more information at http://www.trpi.org