Posted on 07/24/2006 2:09:59 PM PDT by flowerplough
Not at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Of nearly 10,000 black students who graduated from Los Angeles County high schools this past June, just 1 percent will attend UCLA, according to NPR's Morning Edition.
Why? For many, the culprit is Proposition 209, the 1996 anti-affirmative-action bill backed by former UC Regent Ward Connerly, which made it illegal to use race-based preferences in admissions, employment and contracting throughout the state. When Connerly's term ended in January 2005, his message was clear: Don't bring back affirmative action, according to Black Issues in Higher Education.
UC may not be able to reinstate affirmative action, but the devastating decline in black enrollment has spawned discussion about how to revive the university's diversity within the boundaries of the law.
While UC has admitted more students of color since an initial drop after Connerly's Proposition 209, the disparities are concerning. This year, black enrollment at UCLA will be the lowest in more than three decadesa 57 percent decline since 1996. Last year, Latinos comprised 17 percent of UC admissions, marking only a minor gain since 1997, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Fo' shizzle, yo!
I refuse to believe that in today's society that any black who was willing to work hard and persevere will not get ahead and succeed like anybody else.
Maybe, maybe not.
Some abilities can be sharpened if they are there to begin with. If there is no ability then there will be little gain.
Since I didn't apply myself in that direction I'll never know one way or the other.
I would think that putting work and effort into getting into college would have better results than trying to play world class chess. After all, most college students have a public school background. :-)
Martin Luther King, Jr.
For UCLA: DIVERSITY = BLACK
I guess Asians and other minorites don't count.
I recall when this Ward Conery deal came up, Rush would have Dr. Walter Williams on as his replacement host who would in turn have Thomas Sowell on, and they (both highly educated Blacks) had very frank discussions. Their main point of agreement was don't "force" Blacks to the elite schools like UCLA or Berkeley but allow them to attend UC-Irvine or Riverside, places more on their academic level, and they will be successful. To toss them into a pool of much higher equipped and achieving students is really not fair or productive. They end up at the bottom of the class and become discouraged real fast. Where they could be a graduate of a mainline university, they become a drop-out and failure at an elite institution.
"I guess Asians and other minorites don't count."
True. Furthermore, what DOES a UCLA-or any other university for that matter-degree mean when standards sink disproportionately as the 'diversity' rises?
"males attending college? /s :P"
Young men who aren't gay still go to college for degrees other than medicine, engineering, law or business?
I don't think the low numbers for black students has to do with them not wanting an education. My experience as a black female academic in a state w/no affirmative action for public universities has exposed me to many black students who will not apply to schools where there is no affirmative action. They equate it with racism and assume that they won't be welcome.
I have tried to get these students to understand that if they have the grades (and most do), they can compete with anyone. But, they can't get past the implied racism. In Washington state, there are still financial aid programs for minorities, so they can't say that no AA means no financial aid.
Personally, I'd rather compete and show myself that I can get in anywhere, even if, for some bizarre reason, I thought that no AA means the Klan is running the campus. But many students take what I consider to be the easy way out and don't apply. I think the low numbers of admitted black students is not because they can't compete with white students, but because fewer of them apply; the pool is smaller.
Thank you for that insight -- very interesting. Do you think that we can overcome the mistaken impression that no affirmative action equals racism? Treating everyone the same, with no special considerations for race, would indicate 'no' racism to me.
YOU ROCK!
Thank you. I'm here all week.
You may recall that Prop 209 was started as a backlash by s couple conservative Bay-area profs because the Dem-controlled CA Assembly had passed a bill (vetoed by Wilson) requiring AA quotas to extend to grading and graduation.
I don't know. I guess it depends on people's backgrounds and mindsets. I think it is very difficult to change the mind of a person who is still on the Dim plantation. For most of them, racism is in everybody, every institution, every process. For them, you can't escape it. It's like being a damn feminist.
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