The first results of the University of California's ban on affirmative action were released Wednesday, revealing a dramatic drop in the number of black and Latino students offered admission this fall to the university system's prestigious law schools.
UCLA School of Law reported accepting only 21 African American applicants, down 80% from 104 last year, while the number of Latino students accepted decreased from 108 to 73.
At UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall Law School, the 792 students accepted included only 14 blacks, down from 75 a year ago. Boalt offered admission to 39 Latinos, half the number accepted in 1996.
Officials at the system's third law school, at UC Davis, also reported accepting fewer black and Latino students--groups that were already just a tiny fraction of the student body.
At all three schools, UC's new colorblind admissions policies resulted in the acceptance of slightly more white and Asian American students.
The exact breakdown of the law schools' incoming classes will not be known for several months, when officials find out how many of the students who are accepted actually enroll.
"The situation is even worse than the numbers we are releasing," said Michael Rappaport, UCLA Law School's dean of admissions, venting his frustration that his incoming class will not be more racially mixed. "When we say 21 blacks were admitted, keep in mind that many of them have been admitted to Boalt, Harvard and Yale as well. We will be very, very fortunate to get half of them."
UC officials expect a similar pattern in minority admissions to emerge this summer in the university system's 600 other graduate programs--including its five medical schools--as they firm up their first post-affirmative action rosters. The university's ban on considering race, ethnicity or gender in admissions will be extended to undergraduates next year.
While law school administrators lamented the drop in black and Latino students, UC Regent Ward Connerly welcomed it as the public unmasking of an "artificially engineered system of preferences that has been propping up diversity."
"We are too politically correct to reach the conclusion: They are not as competitive to be lawyers and doctors," Connerly said. "If we really want to help those black and Latino kids, we will give them some tough love and get them channeled into being able to compete."
