Posted on 06/04/2006 9:30:35 AM PDT by mathprof
This fall 4,852 freshmen are expected to enroll at the University of California, Los Angeles, but only 96, or 2 percent, are black - the lowest figure in decades and a growing concern on the campus.
For several years, students, professors and administrators at UCLA have watched with discouragement as the numbers of black students declined. But the new figures, released last week, have shocked many on campus and prompted school leaders to declare the situation a crisis.
UCLA - which has such storied black alumni as baseball legend Jackie Robinson, Nobel laureate Ralph Bunche and former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, and is in a county that is 9.8 percent black - now has a lower percentage of black freshmen than either its cross-town rival, the University of Southern California, or UC-Berkeley, the school often considered its top competitor within the UC system.
The 96 figure - down by 20 students from last year - is the lowest for incoming black freshmen since at least 1973. And of the black freshmen who have indicated they will enroll in the fall, 20 are recruited athletes, admissions officials said.
"Clearly, we're going to have to meet this crisis by redoubling our efforts, which have not yielded the results we'd like to see," said Chancellor Albert Carnesale, who met Friday with a delegation of undergraduates upset about the situation.
Carnesale... said that UCLA has been trying for years to boost those levels, within the limits allowed by law. [snip]
Ward Connerly, the former UC regent who was an architect of Proposition 209, said the issue was not the law.
"The problem - and this is an old song, I know - starts with the small number of black students who are academically competitive," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
"with minority students disproportionately affected because they often attend schools with fewer resources, including less-qualified teachers and fewer counselors."
Strange, that doesn't seem to affect those who attend parochial schools (woefully underfunded compared to public schools, and which generally use outdated facilities)
or those who are homeschooled.
The California public schools and the families share the responsibility for failure. The Federal Department of Education and the teachers unions get big assists,
Just change the definition of "black" to "colored", and count asians as blacks. That'll boost the numbers.
/sarc
20% of black students go to college on scholarships?
Where's the equality in that?
I think another factor is that ethnic background and race are being diluted as more and more people intermarry among different cultures and races. I don;t know what UCLA considers 'black,' and the other alternative is self identification of race/ethnic background. If a person is 1/4 black, for example, 1/2 native american, and 1/4 Italian, they might not self identify as 'black,' and the school might not identify them as 'black,' either.
I know a very attractive black woman in NYC. Actually, she just looks black, she isn't all that black. Her ethnic background includes Jamaican, German, Native American, Irish, and Asian. Her father has lighter skin than I do (I'm Full Blooded Italian, Sicilian actually), and he is more 'black' than she is when it comes to ancestry.
Not that long ago it wasn't unusual for a person in the USA to be a full blooded Italian, Irish, German, Greek, whatever. In a relatively short time, that's changed.
I don't tend to think any of this is a bad thing in the least. But a 1970s concept of race & ethnic background already has problems cutting it in the early 21st century, and will grow increasingly meaningless in the decades ahead.
Have they considered self-flogging?
I swear, the charicature of the self-loathing liberal... is not a charicature. Their reality is more pathetic than any skilled demagogue can parody or ridicule with satire.
I spelled caricature wrong. So sue me.
Yes, academic achievement is not something black youngsters consider important. They see it as a "white thing"; thus, to be avoided.
Bill Cosby tried to point this out and was nearly run out of the country by the NAACP.
Until there's a basic change in attitude on the part of the MSM and Dem party, who glorify this debased subculture, it's going to go on.
In my high school there was an acceptable level of mediocrity that was set up. If you go above it, then you're a sell-out/brown-noser/ass-kisser (the black folks call it being an "Uncle Tom"). Academic achievment means that you get ostracized for not being cool. You're not hip. You don't get to hang with the cool kids and the girls, ironically enough, think you're a loser. They'd rather go hang with the rebel partier types. You're blindly accepting the BS that your parents are shoveling. It starts right around 5th grade. Getting good grades, deciding that you want to be in a profession instead of work manual labor, and not constantly voicing how much you hate or are bored by everything is automatically equated with being a nerd, a sheep, and a butt-kisser.
I see the same stuff among the mechanics where I work. If you have an education beyond high school, you're a butt-kisser automatically. You're selling out your manhood for a paycheck. I see a lot of guys who have worked the same drudgery for 40 years, while complaining that they hate every minute of it, what a-holes the bosses are, how the engineers are a bunch of brown-nosing faggots, etc., because being "one of the guys" is more important that moving up or doing something else for a living.
I wonder if somewhere in the article it should have mentioned the 'anti-academic' attitude of many black students who put peer pressure against students who try to achieve academically for 'acting white.'
If you have a generation that turns away from academics as a way up and out of the ghetto and the lower economic class, then you are going to reap the whirlwind of lower applications and fewer qualified students, especially at schools who traditionally have had fine reputations for academic excellence.
I come from a time when males dominated college enrollment and you can count me in as one of the complainers.
No kidding. Sickening.
In order to achieve, you have to be sort of an outsider because the black community would most likely shun you.
It is difficult for young black people to resist massive pressure.
Leading to the question; "How many blacks applied??"
I just have to think that there's money involved somehow. More gubmint funds if they meet a quota, perhaps?
Otherwise, if they've got a full student body, what's the problem?
Actually, I must say that there's a turn around. Black culture is finally starting to embrace education. Everybody in the old 'hood is now in some kind of college and they want to do something with their lives instead of go clubbing and drinking crystale all day and smoking pot.
A Startling Statistic at UCLA .. only 96 blacks are expected in this fall's freshman class.
Yes, obviously this is a problem with the recruiters, not the candidates themselves.
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