Affirmative action not preferential admission

Tuesday, April 21, 1998

Affirmative action not preferential admission

PROP. 209: Those let in due to supplemental criteria just as
qualified as academic admits

By Michael Schwartz

We now know the effects of Proposition 209, the initiative known
as the California Civil Rights Initiative, which did away with
affirmative action programs. The effects of Proposition 209 are
ugly. African American and Latino admissions at UCLA and Berkeley
dropped drastically from last year.

I know a lot of you are thinking that this may be a good thing,
that the people who were turned down were unqualified.

I would like to try to re-educate you on what affirmative action
was, how affirmative action worked here at UCLA, and what
"preferential treatment" really is, as well as the effects of
Proposition 209 and what can be done to remedy this situation.
While I understand that everyone has a story about a friend with a
3.9 and a 1250 SAT score who was denied because of affirmative
action, please allow me to try to re-educate you.

Affirmative action is not and never was about accepting someone
because of their race. Affirmative action allowed race to be taken
into consideration. When people apply to UCLA they are accepted in
either the academic or the holistic review. Sixty percent of the
admits are based on academic review. In the academic review only
grades and SAT scores are taken into consideration; no other
factors are looked at, not even the essay.

The remaining 40 percent of the prospective students are
accepted in the holistic review. This is the point at which they
look at essays, extra-curricular activities, sports, volunteer
work, awards, where you are from and where they used to look at
economic background, race, sex, ethnicity and national origin.

You get special consideration if you are from California since
the regents mandate that most students accepted are from
California. So this is where affirmative action came into play.
When 32,000 people apply for 10,000 spots, admissions officers do
and should look at a lot of factors.

There is a notion that any white person denied entry into UCLA
can blame affirmative action. Again, this is untrue. There were 488
African Americans admitted to UCLA in 1997 (the class affected by
affirmative action admissions policies), and over 10,000 whites
were denied. Those numbers do not match up. Even if every one of
those African-Americans were subject to the holistic review (in
reality about 40 percent were) you have only 488 whites who could
blame affirmative action for denial of admission. And again, that
is not even how affirmative action works.

Remember, white males such as myself also benefit from
affirmative action. More whites get in with socioeconomic
affirmative action than minorities do with affirmative action’s
ethnic considerations. One of the groups helped by affirmative
action is the white female. There were only four women in
Berkeley’s law class in 1969; there were over 170 last year.

Some believe that "unqualified people" are admitted to UCLA
because of affirmative action. Also, some feel that there are
students here at UCLA who received "preferential treatment" in the
admissions process.

Preferential treatment has historical significance. The Land
Grant Act, which gave free land in the West to anyone who wanted
it, was only allowed to be used by white males. During the gold
rush, African Americans or Latinos were imprisoned when they were
caught searching for gold. When the government invented radio and
handed out free stations, only white males were allowed those
stations. When television was invented only white males were
allowed to have stations. And using labor without paying wages is
called a subsidy.

The biggest affirmative action program in our nation’s history
is the GI bill. The GI bill created the American middle class by
entitling veterans and those associated with the military a number
of entitlements:

1) Entry into any college of their choice regardless of test
scores or GPA

2) That college education would be completely paid for

3) The right to buy homes anywhere they wanted

4) 30-year mortgages at less than one percent interest to
purchase those homes

5) Low-interest loans to help start businesses

Only white veterans were entitled to these things.
African-American, Latino and Asian veterans were denied all of
these entitlements. You cannot look at that as something which is
"in the past." The GI bill created our middle class, but minorities
were denied these benefits. This is preferential treatment toward
white males.

Now, let us look at the present. There is an idea on campus and
in the state that there are a bunch of minority students with 3.0
GPAs and 900 SAT scores. There are no unqualified minorities here
at UCLA. In the ’97 freshman class, the last class admitted with
affirmative action policies, African Americans admitted had an
average GPA of 3.9 and an average SAT score of 1240. That is hardly
unqualified.

We experienced a 43 percent drop in African American and a 33
percent drop in Latino admissions. Berkeley had even worse numbers;
there was a 66 percent drop in African Americans and 59 percent in
Latino admits. 1,200 African American, Latino and Native American
applicants were denied entrance to UCLA and Berkeley, with an
average GPA of 4.0 and an average SAT score of 1280. Again, that is
hardly unqualified. These are the students who would have been
here.

To bring a sense of horror to you, in 1953 (the year before
Brown vs. Board of Education) 43 African Americans enrolled at
UCLA; next year the expected number of enrollments is 50. There was
one African American at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall Law school this year;
Little Rock had nine. And why is it that no one is mentioning the 7
percent drop in women’s admissions? Or how about the 5 percent drop
in white admissions (socioeconomic cases like myself)?

The truth is, we do have people at UCLA who received
preferential treatment in admissions. The L.A. Times broke this
story last year. These people are unqualified and shouldn’t be
here. These people have an average GPA of 3.2 and average SAT
scores of 1000. The Times story cited that they were the sons and
daughters of friends of the regents and the governor. The regents
allow themselves the right to get people into UC schools and refuse
to change this practice. How many of these students were allowed
into UCLA and Berkeley? Three hundred. Three hundred students with
an average GPA of 3.2 and average SAT scores of 1000 were admitted
over the past three years. That is preferential treatment, and
those are unqualified students. And that happened again this year,
and again next year and every year after that.

We do not have to sit back and let this happen. We do not have
to watch colleges resegregate themselves. We do not have to let
Pete Wilson’s friends get their unqualified friends’ kids in
through preferential treatment while many students with 4.0 GPAs
and 1280 SAT scores are being denied.

There is an initiative to reinstate affirmative action being
circulated around this campus and others. It is the Equal
Educational Opportunity Initiative. It reads, "In order to provide
equal opportunity, promote diversity and combat discrimination in
public education, the State may consider the economic background,
race, sex, ethnicity and national origin of qualified
individuals."

If you see the initiative, sign it. If you would like to
volunteer, we need all the help we can get. We must not let
California become what Mississippi was. Do not allow diversity to
be destroyed. We learn more from each other then we do from some
tests we cram for.