Beverly Hills School Program to Boost Diversity Will Go On

Beverly Hills educators have changed their minds and will continue to recruit minority students from outside the city after deciding that their pioneering high school diversity program does not violate the law.

School officials earlier this year revealed their intention to scrap their 31-year-old “multicultural” enrollment plan after a school district lawyer decided that it violated Proposition 209, the 1996 ballot initiative that forbids affirmative action programs in public education.

But parents of 117 black, Latino and Asian teenagers enrolled under the program protested, and Beverly Hills residents and the Center for Law in the Public Interest jumped into the fray.

Now school board members have voted not only to save the program, but also to to expand it. Public interest attorneys advised them that Proposition 209 does not outlaw remedial programs such as the multicultural effort, which the board voluntarily adopted more than three decades ago.

Begun in 1969 by Beverly Hills High School’s first black teacher, the home-grown diversity effort recruits minority students from 11 Westside junior high schools operated by the neighboring Los Angeles Unified School District.

It was a member of that first 1969 group who discovered in April that school officials had quietly decided to dismantle the program on the advice of a school board lawyer.

Wanda Greene-Hill is now a Baldwin Hills mother whose 16-year-old daughter attends Beverly Hills High through the program. Greene-Hill learned of the plan to dismantle it when she inquired about her 13-year-old son participating in it this fall.

It turned out that the school lawyer had warned in late 1999 that Beverly Hills officials were in apparent violation of Proposition 209 and could be vulnerable in the event of a lawsuit.

Some thought such a lawsuit was a possibility because some Beverly Hills parents had grumbled that the outsiders were grabbing spots on sports teams, theater productions and the student council that otherwise would have gone to local youngsters.

Greene-Hill and other parents rallied opposition to the cutback, triggering an emotional school board meeting April 25 that drew more than 200 supporters of the program.

Among them was Beverly Hills resident James Gilson, who was student body president in 1969 when the program was launched.

Gilson urged that the multicultural effort be preserved. “I don’t want to deprive my children of the opportunity to live in the enriched environment” that the program has provided for three decades, he told the school board.

Also attending the meeting was Lew Hollman, head of Los Angeles’ Center for Law in the Public Interest. He told the board that its lawyer was wrong about Proposition 209 and he could prove it. Officials invited him to do just that.

Hollman returned later to meet with district administrators. After conferring with legal experts, Beverly Hills officials agreed with him. Last week, the school board voted 5 to 0 to reestablish the program.

“It’s being expanded by another 50 slots, which is a real endorsement of the concept,” Hollman said.

A Beverly Hills Unified School District spokeswoman said criteria for selecting students for the program are being refined to balance citizenship and grades with athletics or extracurricular activities.

Brothers and sisters of those attending Beverly Hills High through the program will be “among those first selected” for spots if they meet criteria, the spokeswoman said.

Greene-Hill said she is glad the dispute is over. But she said there was one positive aspect to it.

“The fact that board members corrected their mistake is good enough for me.”