UC Regents OK Study to Examine Impact of Prop. 209

The UC Board of Regents on Wednesday approved a proposal to study how California's Proposition 209 has affected the makeup of the student body over the past decade. The results of the study will be reported to the Regents' Committee on Educational Policy by May 2007. Regent Frederick Ruiz and Regent Maria Ledesma, who as a graduate student at UCLA is serving a one-year term, requested that the UC Office of the President coordinate a holistic study of the impact of Proposition 209 on UC admissions, enrollment and campus climate. California voters approved Proposition 209 in November 1996. Now a state law, the measure prohibits the consideration of race, ethnicity and gender, as well as other factors, in state education and employment. Unlike a previous study that focused on undergraduates, this study will also look at how graduate and professional students have been affected by Proposition 209, and will review the campus climate for those minorities already enrolled at UC, Ledesma said. Such a study and subsequent report will offer recommendations about how UC can work within legal parameters to enhance the excellence and diversity of the University. It would also help inform the University's current long-range planning efforts and contribute to statewide and national discussions on higher education. "This provides us an invaluable opportunity to think strategically about the University of California's future," Ledesma said at the Regents meeting at UCSF Mission Bay. For his part, Ruiz commended Ledesma for raising the issue this year, the tenth anniversary of Proposition 209. "This is truly her work and she asked me to support it," he told the Regents. "We need to understand the magnitude of the impact of 209 over the last 10 years." Ruiz said he hoped that the information gathered could be used to make for a "better University." Kathleen Dracup, dean of the UCSF School of Nursing, praised the decision to study student diversity. "As one of the most diverse states in the Union, California needs health professionals, particularly nurses, who reflect this same diversity," she said. "I'm heartened by the UC Regents' decision to study the consequences of Proposition 209 on student applications and admissions, particularly at a time when the state legislation has charged UC to increase nursing enrollments." Regents' Reaction
Regent Odessa Johnson wholeheartedly endorsed the study. "One of the reasons we do study history is to try to improve on what's happened," she said, thanking Ledesma for taking on this project. Acknowledging that this is a "complex and emotional issue," Regent George Marcus was among those who said he hopes the study will lead to a positive outcome, one that the University can act upon while obeying the law of the land. Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante, an ex-officio Regent, also approved of the study echoing the need for results. He said that by working within the law, UC may be able to further expand student outreach or market more effectively to recruit underrepresented minorities to the University. Reacting strongly in favor of the study, Regent Eddie Island said the University couldn't act fast enough. "African Americans are disappearing [from the UC student body] at an alarming and precipitous rate," he said. "If 209 brought about this result, then we ought to know it and the public ought to know it. I embrace this proposal." Island, an African American, is among those who believe that declining numbers of underrepresented minorities is due in part to perceptions about the University. "Young African Americans are not enthusiastic about attending UC. They feel a degree of hostility and they don't feel welcome." While the study may uncover such sentiments, statistics at the UCSF School of Dentistry tell a different story. Over the period in question comparing 1997 vs. 2005, the dental school has seen a 48 percent increase in the number of African American applicants; a 37 percent increase in the number of Hispanic applicants; no change in the number of Native American applicants; a 17 percent decline in the number of Asian applicants; a 34 percent decline in the number of Caucasian applicants; and a 380 percent increase in the number of applicants identifying themselves as "other," according to Dean Charles Bertolami. "This has occurred in the context of a roughly 14 percent drop in the overall number of applicants," Bertolami said. "These figures do bounce around quite a bit from year-to-year, but on the whole the distribution of applicants from each of the categories hasn't changed much for the past ten years-with the exception of the increasing number of people who identify themselves as 'other.'"