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UC Rescinds Ban on Affirmative Action
Six years after it instituted a policy prohibiting the use of affirmative action in admissions, employment, and contracting practices, the University of California's board of regents in May unanimously adopted a resolution rescinding the policy. The rescission has few practical implications, since the university is still subject to a similar statewide ban established by a ballot measure that voters passed in 1996.
The regents intended their action to combat the public perception that the UC system is unfriendly toward minorities, according to the university's spokesperson. In a statement accompanying the resolution, regent Judith Hopkinson, who introduced the resolution, wrote that "many people have formed the perception that they are unwelcome at our public university." She said that the resolution affirms the university's commitment to enroll a diverse student body.
After the university's ban was instituted in 1995, enrollment among some minority groups declined dramatically. The number of in-state African American first-year students enrolled at UC in 1998, the first year that an incoming class was affected by the ban, was 739, a drop from 917 in 1997. At Berkeley, the most prestigious campus in the UC system, the number fell from 252 to 122. Hispanic enrollments also declined, though less sharply. (Shortly after the ban was introduced, the AAUP, at the request of UC faculty members, created a special commission to look into its implications and the process by which it was instituted. The commission's report appears on pages 61-66 of the July-August 1996 issue of Academe.)
The Academic Senate for the university system, at the request of president Richard Atkinson, is now reviewing admissions policies; the affirmative action resolution is one of several changes and proposals affecting admissions at UC this year. Current UC practice is to use a "two-tier" process in which 50 to 75 percent of each incoming first-year class is admitted on the basis of academic achievement alone. The other 25 to 50 percent is admitted through a process that considers unusual talents or life circumstances in addition to an applicant's academic record. Students in the top 12.5 percent of the statewide graduating class or the top 4 percent of their high school class are granted automatic admission. In February Atkinson proposed that the UC system drop the requirement that applicants submit SAT I scores. (See "Is the SAT Falling Out of Favor?" on pages 14-15 of the July-August 2001 issue.) He has also proposed a plan that would grant automatic admission to an additional percentage of top students from each California high school provided that they satisfactorily complete a transfer program at a community college.
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