Franklin Gilliam Jr. has an angry, anguished essay in today’s Los Angeles Times about what he regards as the disgracefully low number of blacks who will be entering UCLA next fall. He points out that blacks make up 7% of the total population of California but only 225 blacks were offered admission, 2.3% of the admit pool.
Given typical gender patterns among African American college students, this translates into about 55 women and 45 men. Consider further that roughly 25 of these students will be scholarship athletes, and the majority of these will be males. This leaves 75 non-scholarship students. Taking it one more step, there will be about 30 black male students not on an athletic scholarship, or less than 1% of the incoming freshman class.
It’s clear that Gilliam believes that blacks should be admitted in greater numbers, which would require extending preferences to them based on race, but it is not clear whether he believes greater preferences should be offered to black men than to black women. This passage makes it sound as though he does.
He then asks:
Is this what Californians really want? Is it fair? Is it in the best interest of the state? I’m not here to argue equations, admissions policies, test validity, demographics, the budget, cuts in outreach programs, competition from other campuses, the negative effects of the anti-affirmative action Proposition 209 and such.
I understand the analysis is complex. And I don’t care. Does the number of new African American students attending UCLA (or any UC campus for that matter) have to get to zero before we become outraged?
Let’s turn that question around: does it have to get to 7% of those admitted before Gilliam will be satisfied?
Gilliam doesn’t discuss Asian students, but they made up 42.1% of the admits even though they constitute about 11% of California’s population. In order to reach his presumed goal of 7% black admits, Gilliam would have to impost a severe quota on Asians. No wonder he doesn’t discuss them. Nor, for that matter, does he discuss whites, who were only 33.2% of next year’s admits despite making up just over half of California’s population.
Maybe that’s why in liberal usage manuals “underrepresented minority” has become one word.
ADDENDUM [5/24/2004]
For Gilliam to say that “I’m not here to argue” admissions policies, test validity, Prop. 209, etc., is to say that he thinks 7% of UCLA’s admits should be black even if their grades (“admissions policies” and SAT scores (“test validity”) were lower and even though racial preference is illegal (“Proposition 209”) in California.
It is also worth noting that, as the Univ. of California reports, the percentage of applicants who were admitted in 2004 declined from the previous year for all students, and sharply on some campuses. UC Santa Cruz, for example, offered admission to 67.2% of its applicants in 2004 compared to 81.1% in 2003. In addition, reflecting a trend noticed across the nation, the number of black applicants to the UC system declined by 7% in 2004. Nevertheless, “[u]nderrepresented students, i.e., American Indians, Latinos and African Americans, showed small gains as a total proportion of systemwide admits, from 19.8 percent last year to 20.0 percent.” That number, it is also worth noting, is “above the 18.8% recorded in 1997, when race and ethnicity were last considered as a factor,” according to this report.
Black admits to the UC system for the past two years have been a shade under 3.5%, about half their percentage of the overall population of California. White admits have been around 35%, also less than their 51% or so proportion of the entire population. Asians, as we have seen, are “overrepresented.” Insofar as these numbers represent a problem, the state could admit students to the UC system by a lottery of all high school graduates, which would reduce the imbalance but not eliminate it, or it could engage in the currently illegal practice of “race norming,” admitting the highest scoring students from each ethnic/racial group in numbers designed to reflect their proportion of the overall population.
I’m sure there are other options, but these are the two that come to mind immediately. I wonder which of them Gilliam and those who agree with him prefer.
Why aren’t the number of blacks attending all-black colleges included in the stats which always show them as underrepresented? After all, if those numbers are considered, this would make the percentages attending other colleges more impressive.
If 10% (I’m guessing) of eligible blacks attend all-black schools, that eliminates their possibility of attendance at other schools and makes discrimination an invalid assumption.
Mr. Engel,
I believe the official jargon term is historically black university. And yes, the government slides by the numbers at those schools when calculating “representation” of blacks at universities.
The real questions should be is what percentage of blacks in California had an SAT score above the average needed for admission to UCLA. My guess is that even if California is 8% black, that 8% of the high SAT scores are not from black students.
A recent SF Chronicle story says:
“The UC eligibility rate for black graduates rose from 2.8 percent in 1996 to 6.2 percent in 2003, and the rate for Latinos increased from 3.8 percent to 6.5 percent, according to the study. The 2003 eligibility rates were 16 percent for white graduates and 31 percent for Asian graduates, according to the study, which was conducted by examining nearly 16,000 transcripts from 48 high schools across the state.”
To be eligible, students must have a B average or better in college-prep courses. Those who want to get into UCLA or Berkeley generally need an A average and high test scores. Minimally qualified students go to UC Riverside, the least desireable and least competitive campus.
John, two by-now-familiar points: First, the percentage of the UC entering class as a whole consisting of “underrepresented minorities” is never going to be the benchmark for proponents of affirmative action, even (or rather, especially) if that percentage has gone up (as it has) since racial preferences were formally abandoned. What matters is the racial makeup of UCB and UCLA. No activist cares particularly who gets into Irvine or Riverside or even Davis, although a moderately determined student will come out of these schools with an education pretty well indistinguishable in quality from those available at the “flagships.”
The second point is that while the implied standard for nonwhite underrepresented minorities (whites being a minority in CA and also “underrepresented” in UC, the qualification is necessary) is proportional representation, the implied standard for whites and overrepresented minorities is merit-only.
Proportional representation (through “race norming” or similar measures) would bar a lot of Asian-American students from the system; it would look racist (well, it would be racist, but you know what I mean — it would actually favor white students over students of color); and it would widen the gap between the white and Asian-American students admitted, because the latter would now be the very best, rather than today’s cohort, which is broadly similar in ability to the upper tenth of white students.
The alternative — the lottery — has the unfortunate result of throwing the children of educated minority parents into a vat with every other kid whose grades put her in the top 10% and who got SATs above a certain level. I think it’s a perfectly fair system, myself; but it is very hard for people to give up privilege, however established, however maintained.
Michelle – Excellent points, all of them!
Hey All —
I’ve just found your site and find it invigorating. I thought I might add a couple of thoughts to my LA Times piece of last spring:
1. The main point of the piece was to evoke discussion. My concern is that the issue is just not on anyone’s agenda.
2. I’m not sure what the right numbers are but I know they are headed in the wrong direction. Rather than engaging in conventional and non-productive partisan bickering I would propose people of good faith focus on potential solutions. One place to start is with the admissions criteria.
3. I’m not advocating a dimunition of advocacy for AA women (I have a daughter and I want her to have a fair shot too); I am calling attention to a particular problem.
4. A failure to address this problem – whatever the soultions may be – will be a detriment to all of us.