Cal chancellor warns of diversity crisis - Birgeneau blames Prop. 209 for decline

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 4/8/5 | Charles Burress

[SmithL]

UC Berkeley's new chancellor, Robert Birgeneau, sounded the opening priority for his administration Thursday by issuing a call to action on a student diversity crisis at the highly ranked university.

Citing the drop in under-represented minorities on campus, especially African Americans, Birgeneau called for research into refining admissions standards and finding the best ways to create a more multicultural campus.

"Part of what I'm trying to accomplish as a new chancellor here is to say this really is a crisis," Birgeneau said in outlining his agenda to reporters at a campus faculty club.

Birgeneau's diversity campaign -- including an op-ed column in the Los Angeles Times on March 27 -- represents his first major public initiative since becoming chancellor in September. The former University of Toronto president will have his formal inauguration ceremony on April 15.

"We're not meeting our obligation as a public institution because we're underserving in an extreme way a significant and increasingly important part of the population, which actually is going to be the majority population," he said.

Birgeneau blamed the drop in numbers on Proposition 209, the 1996 voter- approved initiative that banned affirmative action based on race and gender for state and local agencies, including the university.

The number of African Americans in Cal's 1996-97 freshman class, before Prop. 209 took effect, was 260, while the 2004-05 class has only 108, with fewer than 40 males, he said.

"Out of 3,600 freshman students, that's just a shocking number," he said.

Even more striking, he said, is that there is not even one African American among the approximately 800 entering students in engineering, ...

[An American Patriot]

Your tax dollars at work and play.

Am I the only person who picked up on one of Birgeneau's more prophetic comments (the only one which made any sense) which sadly, is accurate:

"We're not meeting our obligation as a public institution because we're underserving in an extreme way a significant and increasingly important part of the population, which actually is going to be the majority population,"

[KC_for_Freedom]

Asians are one of those minority groups that don't count since we do too well.

When prop 209 passed an Asian Liberal told me that as a white I should support diversity because if it came to pure merit, UC (My alma mater) would be all Asian. I told him I did not mind as long as they kept race from becoming a criteria or a standard.

[mdmathis6]

2.9 GPA isn't that terrible really for a lot of State run schools in this country, though the Elite top schools won't even look at you if you are under 3.4

[Regulator]

which actually is going to be the majority population

So, he answers his own question inadvertently. If the "dominant" ethnicity will soon be not_dominant, then....they will be a minority! And...if they are in many professions, having been admitted to, and graduated from, a prestigious university, why...wouldn't that be wonderful?

So all he has to do is sit on his thumbs and let the future Majority flood across the border. Gosh, a liberal's dream!

[monkeywrench]

"It means, "African American, Latino, and Native American".

Those are the groups the left use for their political ends. Keep them stirred up, brainwashed, and hate filled.

Colleges are just anti-American radical, freedom hating, indoctrination centers anymore. Bases for the lefts army.

[ApplegateRanch]

You got that smog question right! I got my AA from RCC in '72, then left for healthier air.

Went back to Riverside in '92 to visit a friend. Couldn't see, let alone alone read, the freeway signs at 100 yards that afternoon. Didn't have to worry about being distracted or upset by any nasty views of the San Bird-doo mountains.

The color was a better: less brown, and slightly more bilious, yellow; and they seemed to improved the sharpness of the ozone tang, but at the expense of acridity....

Oh the bright side, the air should have disolved that huge, Godawful red steel "sculpture" the city mounted in the mall near the Mission Inn by now.

[Uncle Hal]

Only 40 black males in this years freshmen class? One would think there would be that many on athletic scholarships alone. Something does not add up hear