Government Stats: Calif. Minority Students Aided By Race-Neutral Admissions

Face The State Staff Report

Proponents of a Colorado ballot initiative that would bar state-sponsored discrimination are touting college admission trends for racial minorities in California after a similar law was passed there in 1996.

The universities

Official government data indicate that admissions rates and numbers of underrepresented minority groups have actually increased at seven of nine University of California campuses. Overall, black and Hispanic students represent 25 percent of new admissions in 2008, up from 18 percent in the year before anti-discrimination law Proposition 209 took effect. Since 2005 alone, the number of black and Hispanic admissions has grown by 47 percent, compared to an 11 percent increase for new white and Asian students.

"We've always believed that women and minorities could compete on the basis of their merit and this data proves it," said Jessica Peck Corry, executive director of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative (Corry is also an editorial contributor to Face The State). Corry's group supports the passage of Amendment 46, a citizen-led ballot initiative set to appear on the November statewide ballot.

National advocates for race and gender-neutral outreach policies argue that the net effect of the California ban has been that more students have been placed in academic environments for which they are prepared.

"No one in California who wants to pursue a higher education in the public system is kept from doing that as result of Proposition 209," said Roger Clegg, president of the Virginia-based Center for Equal Opportunity. "It may mean they go to UC-Riverside instead of Berkeley or something like that, but it doesn't mean they don't get to go to a school in the UC system."

One study showed the elimination of racial disparities in grade point averages at UC-San Diego. Clegg said the level playing field has benefited many minority students and that students are ultimately more likely to earn a college degree under a race-neutral admissions system.

"If you have students of one race who are being systematically admitted with lower academic credentials, you would expect their performance to be less than if they were admitted with higher academic credentials," he said.

But the group organized to oppose Colorado's similar measure not only says the short-term impacts of Proposition 209 were harmful but also disagree with the data's conclusions.

"After California’s enactment of Proposition 209, minority admissions to the University of California system dropped precipitously," said Craig Hughes, spokesperson for Vote No on Amendment 46. "While the numbers have recovered to some degree, they are still not at the level that they were prior to enactment of 209. And equal opportunity has not been realized."

Hughes told Face The State that the university system's minority graduation rates have yet to attain pre-Proposition 209 levels. He added that the 1996 law put an end to programs that targeted women and racial minorities for college recruitment or for promotion in fields where they have been traditionally underrepresented, such as math and science.

Clegg and CEO Chairwoman Linda Chavez, a Colorado resident and co-sponsor of Amendment 46, are currently attempting to calculate the actual role race plays in college admissions in Colorado. Clegg says state public information laws have made the process difficult, leaving both supporters and opponents of Amendment 46 without reliable information.

"Whether someone is inclined to vote for or against the initiative, it's hard to understand why anybody would want the University of Colorado's policies kept secret," he said. "In this year of all years, the voters have the right to know how much racial discrimination the public universities of Colorado are engaging in."

While the Supreme Court banned the use of racial or gender quotas, many universities still maintain race or gender "as one of many factors" in determining whether to admit students.

"It doesn't really matter if ostensibly the preferences are being awarded mechanically through a points system or through some touch-feely wholistic review," Clegg said. "You can see how heavily the university is discriminating."

However, Hughes says that ensuring a balanced representation of different races and ethnic groups is a compelling interest for state universities.

"Race neutrality is not the answer," he said. "Instead, race and gender should be used among many factors to consider in ensuring a diverse student body and according equal opportunity to all prospective students."

Opponents of Colorado's Amendment 46 argue that racial identity should continue to be taken into account until some sort of parity has been realized.

"Equal opportunity programs will have fully accomplished their goals when all Americans, regardless of race or gender, have access to the same education, to the same job opportunities, and to the same pay for a day’s work," said Hughes, referring to programs more commonly described as affirmative action. "Progress has been made, but the level playing field has not yet been achieved."

But Corry believes the other side is defending a practice no better than the one it was supposed to correct.

"Fifty years ago, it was wrong to segregate people at drinking fountains and today, it's wrong to segregate them in college admissions," she said. "The time is long overdue to stop treating women and minorities like second-class citizens who can't compete on the basis of their own merit. Race and gender preferences only distract us from real solutions to the class-based inequities we face as a state and as a nation."