Fallout From UC Preferences Ban

Eddie Lara, raised in Pico Rivera, the son of Mexican immigrants and the only one in his family to go to college, could have enrolled at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law this fall.

The honors student, who completed a double major in political science and sociology at UC Berkeley in four years, was among 48 Latinos offered spots in the prestigious law school’s 270-member first-year class. But after attending Admitted Students Day--a reception that he called “just a big room full of white people”--Lara told Boalt no. Next month, he is headed for Columbia Law School in New York City.

“Boalt Hall is a great school. But this whole thing--this affirmative action ban--is turning off a lot of people from going there,” said Lara, 22, explaining that the UC Board of Regents’ decision to ban consideration of race in admissions played a significant part in his choice.

“They say your race doesn’t count for who you are. That’s a horrible statement. My whole heritage, my whole culture--they’re going to say that doesn’t mean anything? . . . That’s going to hurt them badly.”

In the wake of the disclosure that not one of the 14 black students admitted this year to Boalt--and only 18 of 48 Latinos--has decided to enroll, officials of the nine-campus UC system worried Friday that Lara may increasingly speak for his generation. Could UC’s ban on affirmative action--which went into effect for graduate schools this year and will be extended to undergraduates next year--scare top students away? Some fear the answer is yes.

“These are concerns we all have,” said Rae Lee Siporin, UCLA’s undergraduate admissions director, who called Boalt’s enrollment numbers “a red flag being waved in the face of potential students.”

Even before the affirmative action ban goes into effect for undergraduates, Siporin said, applications from black and Latino students to UCLA have dropped off significantly.

“We know that one of the reasons students come to UCLA is they want to be at a diverse school. The thing that’s been worrying us from the get-go is that the impression would be that UC no longer cares about [underrepresented minorities],” Siporin said, adding that admissions officials throughout UC feel like “we’re swimming upstream.”

Boalt’s latest admission data resonated Friday at the highest levels, as UC President Richard C. Atkinson released a statement saying he was “saddened and disturbed.” He pledged to redouble efforts to persuade underrepresented minorities that they are welcome.

“A diverse student body is important to the learning environment of our students and is vital to the future of our state,” Atkinson said.

Opponents of affirmative action, meanwhile, disputed that contention.

“Diversity in and of itself does not enrich the educational process,” said Jennifer Nelson, executive director of the American Civil Rights Institute in Sacramento, a group co-founded by UC Regent Ward Connerly this year to promote the elimination of racial preferences. Instead of trying to reinstate affirmative action programs, she said, educators should work harder to make sure every student can compete.

Connerly agreed, saying he was not surprised that the removal of racial preferences had had a dramatic impact on the enrollment numbers.

“As long as we’re not skewing the competition, we have to let the chips fall where they may,” he said. He blamed UC administrators for creating an unwelcome environment for minority students.

“When you keep saying it over and over again, you make it a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “I really wonder whether some of this is not being manipulated to produce the worst possible outcome in the hopes of somehow heading off the movement nationwide to dismantle racial preferences.”

Boalt officials did not release the names of the 14 blacks who declined admission, so it was unclear what convinced them to say no. But Hashona Braun, a third-year student at Boalt, said that she had consulted with three of the students and that all were concerned about how the affirmative action ban would affect their experience at UC. And all three had options: They had been admitted to other top schools.

“Every one wanted to know how many other black students had been admitted. They were concerned they were going to come and be the only [black] person,” said Braun, co-president of Law Students of African Descent at Boalt. “For many of us, Boalt has lost its appeal. . . . None of us blame any of the 14 admitted students for not coming. If we were in the same position, we wouldn’t come either.”

Another black third-year student, Marvin Peguese, was similarly concerned. “Even Little Rock had nine [black students],” he said, referring to the teenagers who in 1957 integrated Central High School in Arkansas after President Dwight Eisenhower sent in military units to enforce a federal court order. “This is a telling statement of how far back we’ve gone.”

For now, one black student is still planning to join Boalt’s first-year class--a student who was admitted last year but deferred enrolling. That would bring the total number of underrepresented minorities to 19, including the Latinos. Both Native Americans who were accepted opted not to attend.

Last year, 20 blacks, 28 Latinos and four Native Americans enrolled in Boalt’s first-year class.

At UCLA, 10 blacks and 41 Latinos have said they will attend this fall. Last year, those figures were substantially higher. Dismayed by the numbers at both schools, some in the legal community vowed to take action. Raymond Marshall, a partner at McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen, one of the state’s largest and oldest law firms, and the former president of the San Francisco Bar Assn., suggested that some top firms may agree not to hire as many UC law graduates.

“The idea is to say [to UC], ‘One way or another, you cannot have another class like you did this year and expect us to continue to interview at your schools in the same manner as we did in the past,’ ” Marshall said. “We are committed to diversity, and if it’s not found in one school, we’ll get it in another.”