Beyond Percentage Plans: The Challenge of Equal Opportunity in Higher Education

(Staff Report)

Chapter 2

Percentage Plans

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Overview

When the Commission issued its April 2000 statement on percentage plans,[1] the University of California (UC) had had a ban on the use of race for determining first-time student admissions for almost two years. A percentage plan for admitting first-time students to the university had been in place for decades, but it had been accompanied by affirmative action programs intended to augment minority representation in the student body. The affirmative action programs were abandoned when the use of race was prohibited, and the university began seeking other means, including modifications to the percentage plan and increased outreach, to ensure diversity among students.

Civil rights advocates have urged state university systems to establish percentage plans only along with the continued use of affirmative action. The Commission’s statement in 2000 criticized UC admissions policies because declines in enrollment of black, Hispanic, and American Indian students, both undergraduates and first-time law students, had occurred following implementation of the race ban, particularly at the premiere Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses.[2] Other concerns about the University of California were that African American and Latino and Filipino American applicants were denied admission by the following: eligibility requirements for courses that were less accessible in the high schools these students attend; an undue and unjustified reliance on standardized test scores and judgments made based on educationally insignificant differences in tests scores; disparities in grade point averages that special considerations did not mitigate; and an unvalidated admissions process that did not adopt alternative criteria with less disparate impact on minority applicants.[3]

The section below explains UC’s various admissions policies and is followed by an analysis showing the dwindling numbers of Hispanic, African American, and Native American students in the UC system using applicant, admissions, and enrollment data from 1995 to the present. Enrollment data for the current 2002–2003 academic year were not available at the time this report was prepared.

Admissions Policies

The University of California consists of eight campuses—Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz—with a growing population of upward of 25,000 first-time students (see table 2.1).[4] Its admissions policies are established by a Board of Regents. Numerous policies have been in effect both before and since a ban on the use of race in admissions was imposed. Table 2.2 shows a timeline for when key decisions about admissions were made and the policies implemented.

The 12.5 Percent Plan With and Without Affirmative Action

As early as 1960, the UC Board of Regents and the California State Board of Education approved the California Master Plan for Higher Education. The plan established the principle of universal access and choice and established a three-tier system with the University of California as the state’s primary academic research institution providing undergraduate, graduate, and professional education. The plan identified college admissions pools for each tier. UC was designated the most selective. It was to admit California residents in the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates. Applicants who met the 12.5 percent requirement would be offered a place somewhere in the UC system, though not necessarily at the campus or in the major of first choice.[5]

The Master Plan broadly confines admissions, but allows the University of California campuses to vary criteria within constraints.[6] The UC system has 14 selection criteria, 10 of which are academic, such as standardized test scores, completion of college preparatory curricula, and minimum grade point averages. The other four selection criteria are supplemental, having to do with special talents, life experiences, and geographic diversity. Campus differences in the use of selection criteria account for whether or not applicants are admitted to their first choice among schools.[7] Furthermore, given the criteria and other constraints, only 11.1 percent of high school graduates statewide were eligible for admission in recent years, not the 12.5 percent the Master Plan stated as a goal.[8]

The California Master Plan for Higher Education has been reviewed numerous times over the decades and has undergone minor modifications in response to some of those reviews.[9] Ethnic, gender, and economic diversity issues were raised in reviews of the plan in the early 1970s and again in the late 1980s. The 1970s reviews sought to ensure access for all eligible students and to expand the use of “non-traditional” criteria for admitting larger proportions of the student body. UC was urged to approximate the general ethnic, gender, and economic composition of recent California high school graduates. This goal was reiterated again in a 1989 review with a directive that governing boards determine policies and programs that increase the access of underrepresented students to first-time admission and college successes. The need for innovative outreach programs was stressed.[10]

The state-imposed Master Plan, with its requirement for UC to admit the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates, remains in place today. A new Master Plan for Education, released September 9, 2002, maintains the 12.5 percent admissions policy.[11] What has changed about the plan over the decades is emphasis on affirmative action. This emphasis grew in the 1970s and 1980s, with the incorporation of outreach to minority students intended to increase enrollment of underrepresented groups, and was then abandoned after race bans were imposed in the late 1990s.[12] The UC system’s selection criteria appear to have changed in relatively minor ways over the years.[13] However, the 2002 Master Plan recommends placing less weight on honors and advanced placement courses and considering both objective and qualitative personal characteristics of applicants equally in the admissions process.[14

Admission by Exception

Concurrent with other admissions plans, UC has had a policy to admit a small proportion of students who did not meet the eligibility requirements but demonstrated reasonable potential for success. Enrolling students who are otherwise fully eligible and admissible but who have course deficiencies due to the unavailability of courses in their high schools has been a UC practice for more than a decade.[15] In July 1996, UC’s president articulated the policy, providing campuses explicit flexibility to admit a small proportion of students effective with the spring 1998 quarter: Up to 6 percent of newly enrolled freshmen could be admitted “by exception” at each campus. Up to 4 percent could be drawn from disadvantaged students, and up to 2 percent from other students. Disadvantaged students were defined as students from low socioeconomic backgrounds or students who had experienced limited educational opportunities.[16]

The University- and State-Imposed Race Bans With 50 to 75 Percent Admitted on Academic Merit

On July 20, 1995, the UC Board of Regents approved an admissions policy prohibiting all schools in the UC system from using “race, religion, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin as criteria for admission to the University or to any program of study.”[17] The policy further stated that the university would admit no less than 50 percent and no more than 75 percent of applicants on academic criteria alone.[18]

On November 6, 1996, the voters of California passed Proposition 209, further prohibiting the use of race in college admissions for any state body. The proposition was incorporated into the California Constitution and took effect on August 28, 1997. Several lower court decisions challenged the proposition, but the U.S. Supreme Court denied further appeal on November 3, 1997, and the proposition remains in effect today.[19] The first UC students the proposition affected were those entering in the fall of 1998 (see table 2.2).

The race bans imposed by Proposition 209 and the university’s Board of Regents, therefore, began with the same entering undergraduates. The university-imposed race ban, emphasizing academic merit, was only in effect until May 16, 2001, when the Board of Regents rescinded it. With Proposition 209 becoming part of the state constitution, the regents’ act, in effect, shifted accountability for the race ban to the state. However, in addition to rescinding the ban on race, the regents did away with the requirement that 50 to 75 percent of admissions be based on academic merit alone.[20]

“Eligibility in the Local Context”—The 4 Percent Plan

The Board of Regents approved a 4 percent plan on March 19, 1999. Referred to as “eligibility in the local context,” it guaranteed admission in the UC system to the top 4 percent of students in California high schools, if the students had successfully completed specific college preparatory coursework. This policy supplemented other existing admissions policies and took effect for students entering UC as freshmen in the fall 2001.[21]

The “Eligibility in the Local Context” program, or 4 percent plan, did not bring about a major change in UC admissions. The California Master Plan for Education already guaranteed admission to California residents graduating from high school in the top 12.5 percent of students statewide, and an estimated 60 to 65 percent of students in the top 4 percent of their local high schools were already eligible for UC admission under the statewide 12.5 percent plan. Thus, the 4 percent plan merely broadened the UC eligible pool to include an estimated additional 3,500 to 4,000 students who ranked near the top of their schools but were not among the top 12.5 percent of students statewide.[22] The addition of the 4 percent plan was expected to increase underrepresented minorities, yielding an additional 300 to 700 Chicano/Latino and African American students within UC’s eligibility pool.[23]

The Comprehensive Review

On November 15, 2001, the UC Board of Regents approved a comprehensive review process that would evaluate and admit applicants to UC campuses beginning in fall 2002 using multiple measures of achievement and promise and consider the context in which each student had demonstrated academic accomplishment. The board further indicated that the comprehensive review policies “shall be used fairly, shall not use racial preferences of any kind, and shall comply with Proposition 209.”[24]

The comprehensive review replaced the requirement that 50 to 75 percent of students be admitted on academic criteria alone. Thus, the older system created a two-tier selection process whereby campuses used only the 10 academic criteria to admit 50 to 75 percent of students. The remainder of the students could be selected using a set of 14 criteria, four of which were nonacademic. Under the comprehensive review system, all 14 criteria are used to select all students. Thus, student records are analyzed not just for grades and test scores, but also for evidence of such qualities as motivation, leadership, intellectual curiosity, and initiative.[25]

University officials tout the comprehensive review for leading to a more thorough and complete review of the broad variety of applicants’ academic and personal qualifications, yet continuing to ensure the admission of highly qualified students.[26] Critics of the comprehensive review charge that it is a “backdoor attempt to boost minority enrollment in the post-Proposition 209 era at the expense of objective, academically based entrance criteria.”[27]

Table 2.3 lists the various admissions policies that have applied to UC and illustrates the school years for which they were in effect. With regard to timing, the policies follow three co-existing patterns. First, the 12.5 percent plan and the admission by exception policy were in effect throughout the period studied here, which includes the 1995–96 school year through the 2002–03 school year.

Second, bans on the use of race for undergraduate admissions were not in effect before the fall 1998 school year, but have been since that time. Approved in mid-1995, the UC ban on race did not take effect for undergraduates until the 1998–99 school year; Proposition 209, passed by the voters in 1996, affected the same entering students, and remains in effect today.

Third, a series of other admissions policies occurred during the period studied. Affirmative action programs, including outreach, were in place during the pre-ban school years of fall 1995 to spring 1998. An emphasis on academic merit—the requirement that 50 to 75 percent of entering students be admitted on academic criteria alone—was imposed from fall of 1998 to spring 2002. “Eligibility in the local context,” the 4 percent plan, was implemented in fall 2001, and overlapped for one year with the 50 to 75 percent academic merit requirement and for one year, so far, with the latest program, the comprehensive review. The comprehensive review was used for the first time with the class entering in the fall of 2002. The 4 percent plan and the comprehensive review, along with other new policies to take effect with future admissions, were intended to diversify the class to achieve representation of minorities closer to that achieved with affirmative action programs before the use of race was banned.

Undergraduate Enrollment, Applications, and Admissions

Enrollment

For this study, University of California data were obtained for California resident applications, admissions, and enrollees by race.[28] The analysis that follows examines first the racial and ethnic composition for the 1995–96 school year and contrasts it with other pre- and post-ban years and admissions policies that were in effect.

Figure 2.1 shows enrollment data by race of freshmen entering the University of California system in fall 1995 when affirmative action programs were still in place. The university as a whole had approximately equal proportions of Asian Pacific American and white students enrolled (36 to 37 percent) in the 1995–96 school year. Sixteen percent of students were Hispanic, 4 percent black, and 1 percent Native American.

The UC campuses varied in the racial and ethnic composition of 1995 freshmen, between campuses that were majority white, slightly preponderant in whites, majority Asian Pacific American, and diverse with a slight preponderance of Asian Pacific Americans. The Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz campuses were majority white—59 and 55 percent, respectively. The Davis and San Diego campuses had more whites than Asians, but not a white majority, with 43 to 44 percent white and 34 and 39 percent Asian Pacific Americans. Irvine was majority Asian Pacific American (60 percent). Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Riverside had more Asian Pacific Americans (38 to 41percent) than whites (25 to 30 percent), and larger proportions of Hispanics (17 to 22 percent) and African Americans (7 percent), making them the most diverse campuses (see figure 2.1).

As for people of color other than Asian Pacific Americans: Los Angeles and Riverside had the most Hispanics (22 percent); Santa Cruz and Berkeley each 17 percent; Santa Barbara, Davis, and Irvine, 13 to 14 percent Hispanics; San Diego, only 9 percent. Perhaps the most striking observation is that African Americans were never more than 7 percent at any UC campus. Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and Davis had 3 to 4 percent blacks and Irvine and San Diego, only 1 to 2 percent. The proportions of Native Americans ranged between 0.5 and 1.8 percent at the various campuses (see figure 2.1).

Changes over time have brought slightly more preponderance of Asian Pacific Americans to the racial/ethnic character of the UC campuses. From the entering class of 1996 to that of 2001, the UC system had 36 to 39 percent Asian Pacific Americans and 33 to 40 percent whites. Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz continued to have majority-white campuses; Irvine continued to have an Asian Pacific American majority. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Riverside maintained the preponderance of Asian Pacific Americans, if not the diversity of other minority groups. Davis and San Diego, which had a slight preponderance of whites in 1995–96, changed over time to have a slight preponderance of Asian Pacific Americans. San Diego began to have a greater proportion of Asian Pacific Americans than whites with entering freshmen in fall 1998 when the race ban was first imposed and thereafter. Davis showed more Asian Pacific Americans than whites in fall 2001.[29]

Figure 2.1
Racial/Ethnic Composition of First-Time Freshmen Enrolled in the University of California System, 1995–96

Source: Compiled from University of California, "Application, Admissions and Enrollment of California Resident Freshmen for Fall 1995 through 2001."

The preponderance of Asian Pacific Americans and whites in the UC system and its campuses hide, however, the subtle dwindling in the enrolled proportions of Hispanic, black, and Native Americans—the underrepresented minority groups.[30] The UC system had 16 percent Hispanics in 1995–96, but has had only 12 to 14 percent thereafter. It had 4 percent blacks in 1995–96, but has often had only 3 percent since then. It had 1.1 percent Native Americans in 1995–96, but only 0.5 to 1.0 percent in the ensuing school years.[31] The Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses, which had been quite diverse with 26 and 30 percent Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans in 1995–96, had only 16 and 17 percent in 2001–02.[32] It is these changes in enrollment that will be analyzed below in light of the various admissions policies.

Table 2.4 shows changes in the representation of blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans among the University of California’s first-time enrolled students from classes entering in 1995 through 2001. The first columns show the number and percentage of these groups that were admitted in the 1995–96 school year. The remaining columns show, for the fall 1996 through fall 2001 school years, the difference between the numbers of these groups enrolled and the number that would have been enrolled had the proportional representation of the group in the 1995–96 school year been sustained along with the growth of the university. Deficits are shown in parentheses.

For the UC system as a whole, all three groups show deficits in the numbers enrolled for every year since the baseline 1995–96. For this six-year period, a total of nearly 1,600 fewer African Americans, approximately 4,000 fewer Hispanics, and 675 fewer Native Americans have been enrolled than would have been had the representation of these groups in the baseline year been preserved (see table 2.4).

The latter two pre-ban years (1996–97 and 1997–98) show smaller deficits in this expected number of enrollees than the years following the race ban. For blacks, the UC system shows a deficit of about 100 enrollees in the pre-ban years and between 320 and 377 in the race-ban years. For Hispanics, there were deficits of 409 and 564 enrollees in the pre-ban years. The deficit grew to 933 Hispanics in 1998–99, the first year of the race ban, and then waned some after that to a deficit of 614 in 2001–02. For Native Americans, deficits in enrollees increased across the years from 24 in 1996–97 to 160 in 2001–02, showing no obvious effect of the ban on race.

Rarely did schools in the UC system enroll proportionally more of these groups than they had in 1995–96. Santa Barbara was an exception, having enrolled 14 to 16 percent Hispanics each year since the baseline year. San Diego was able to enroll proportionally more of the underrepresented minority groups than in 1995–96 in a number of instances, possibly because the campus had such small proportions enrolled in the first place. Berkeley was able to enroll a larger number of blacks in the last pre-ban year, 1997–98; Irvine was able to do so recently for the 2001–02 school year.

Table 2.4
Surplus or Deficit in Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans Enrolled in University of California Relative to 1995–96 School Year

In short, UC data show that seemingly low proportions of African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are enrolled in the system and that the percentages have diminished since the 1995–96 school year, even in the pre-ban years. The percentages dropped further after the race ban went into effect, and have not recovered in recent years despite changes in policy intended to diversify the student populations. At the same time, some campuses did better than others at enrolling underrepresented students despite admissions policies that the state and the university system imposed.

Applications and Admissions

The racial/ethnic composition of the university’s enrollment is partly determined by who is eligible and who applies to the school. Each of the underrepresented minority groups is a larger proportion of high school diploma recipients in California than of UC applicants. Of the spring 2000 California high school diploma recipients, 7.3 percent were African American, 32.6 percent were Hispanic, and 0.9 percent, Native American.[33] The proportions among UC applicants were only 4.2, 14.6, and 0.7 for African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans applying for the 2000–01 school year.[34] If UC received applications from the top 12.5 percent of African American and Hispanic diploma recipients from California, the university would have received more than 2,800 applications from African Americans and nearly 12,600 from Hispanics.[35] Instead, the system received only 2,376 and 8,234 applicants from African Americans and Hispanics for that fall.[36]

The University of California’s applications and admissions follow trends similar to the enrollment data. Table 2.5 shows the numbers and percentage of persons from underrepresented minority groups who were admitted to the UC system for selected years—the baseline 1995–96 school year, the first year of the race ban (1998–99), and the most recent year (2001–02). The table reveals, first, that both the numbers and percentages of the underrepresented minority applicants and admissions declined when the race ban was imposed. For example, about 150 fewer African Americans applied to UC in the year the race ban was implemented than in 1995–96. About 300 fewer African Americans were admitted to UC in the first year of the race ban than in 1995–96. About 450 fewer Hispanics were admitted when the race ban was first imposed than had been in the baseline year.

By the 2001–02 school year, UC received more applications from and admitted more African Americans and Hispanics than it had in 1995–96. However, the proportions of these two groups, although larger than when the race ban was first instituted, remained smaller than during the baseline year. Thus, African Americans were 4.3 percent of applications in 2001–02, but had been 5.0 percent in 1995–96. African Americans were 3.4 percent of those admitted to UC in 2001–02, but had been 4.4 percent of those admitted in the baseline year. Native Americans were only 0.6 percent of applicants or those admitted in 2001–02, although they had been 1.0 percent in 1995–96. The numbers of Native American applicants and admissions were still lower than they were in 1995–96 (see table 2.5).

Despite the seemingly small decreases in the numbers of underrepresented minorities admitted to UC when the race ban was imposed, dramatic changes occurred in the admissions of some institutions making up the UC system. Figure 2.2 shows the ratio of the number of students admitted to the number of students who applied for African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. The graphs depict these ratios for the university system and three of its campuses—Los Angeles, Berkeley, and San Diego.

The UC admission rates are lower for African Americans than for Hispanics or Native Americans, and lower after the race ban than before. Between 80 and 87 out of 100 Native American or Hispanic applicants were admitted to UC in the years before the race ban, but only 71 to 73 out of 100 African American applicants. In the years since the race ban was imposed, 73 to 82 out of 100 Native American and Hispanic applicants were admitted, but only 64 to 67 out of 100 African Americans. At the Los Angeles, Berkeley, and San Diego campuses, the admission rates for the underrepresented minorities are even lower. Although these campuses admitted between 38 and 55 out of 100 African American applicants before the race ban, they only admitted between 20 and 28 out of 100 when the ban was imposed and thereafter. They admitted between 40 and 58 out of 100 Hispanic applicants before the race ban, and between 20 and 36 out of 100 after. Between 50 and 73 out of 100 Native American applicants were admitted before the ban, and only 18 to 36 out of 100 after (see figure 2.2). Figure 2.2 does not show any upswing in the acceptance rates of these three campuses suggesting greater likelihood of underrepresented minorities being admitted as the new admissions policies, implemented in 2001 and touted for promoting diversity, would lead one to expect.

Furthermore, a comparison of admission rates and enrollment rates in table 2.5 shows that these underrepresented minorities are often an even smaller proportion of students who enroll in the university than they were of those who were admitted. For example, although 14.6 percent of persons admitted for the 2001–02 school year were Hispanic, only 13.5 percent of those who actually enrolled were Hispanic. Thus, UC was not always as successful in enrolling persons from these underrepresented groups as it was in admitting them.

Recent news articles have reported on admissions for fall 2002 freshmen, stating that the University of California has admitted more minority students for the first time since affirmative action was abandoned. According to one article, 19.1 percent of the university system’s admissions for fall 2002 were from underrepresented minority groups.[37] This compares favorably with the admissions figure of 18.8 percent for these groups for the pre-ban year of 1997–98. However, as indicated here, the percentages of these minorities had already begun decreasing by fall 1997. Thus, 2002 admissions still fall below the 21.2 percent of the 1995–96 admissions that were African American, Hispanic, and Native American (adding figures from table 2.5).

Professional School Enrollment, Applications, and Admissions

Five of the University of California campuses—Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco—have medical schools; Berkeley, Davis, and Los Angeles have law schools (see table 2.1, above). Table 2.6 shows the numbers and percentages of applicants, admissions, and new registrants in the three underrepresented minority groups for University of California medical and law schools. The race ban was imposed upon graduate admissions one year earlier than on undergraduates.[38] Thus, the 1997–98 school year is shown as the first year of the race ban, and 1998–99 as the second year.

First, only a few (just three in fall 1995) Native Americans were admitted to UC medical schools prior to the race ban. Given these very small numbers, improved performance in later years (five in fall 1997) is hardly significant (see table 2.6). The general trends described below with other groups do not apply to Native Americans in regard to medical schools.

Apart from this special occurrence with Native Americans, the University of California medical and law schools had large drops in the numbers of applicants, admissions, and new registrants for the three underrepresented minority groups from the 1995–96 pre-ban year to 1997–98, when the ban was implemented. In most instances, applications continued to drop in 1998–99, the second year of the race ban. Furthermore, the proportional representation of these groups among applicants, admissions, and new registrants decreased when the race ban was imposed. The lower representation of African Americans in law schools was particularly severe, as is shown in more detail in figure 2.3. African Americans were 7.2 percent of those admitted to UC law schools in 1995–96, but only 2.2 percent of admissions in 1997–98 (see table 2.6 and figure 2.3).

Table 2.6
University of California Applicants, Admissions, and Enrollment for Underrepresented Minority Groups in Medical and Law Schools for Selected School Years

Whatever professional school admissions policies were put in place by fall 2001, they increased the admissions among African Americans slightly. However, the increases in admissions were not always realized in enrollment. The proportions of African Americans and Hispanics enrolled in UC medical and law schools remained below the levels of 1995–96, and the proportion of Native Americans enrolled in law schools remained below that baseline year (see figure 2.3 and table 2.6). In short, for the 2001–02 school year, the five UC medical schools enrolled an average of four African Americans, nine Hispanics, and no Native Americans each. The law schools each enrolled an average of nine African Americans, 19 Hispanics, and one to two Native Americans.

Affirmative Action and Outreach

Before the ban, the University of California had affirmative action programs. When Proposition 209 passed, there was uncertainty about whether the race ban applied to outreach. Ultimately, programs to diversify the university’s student body were targeted differently and were referred to as outreach.[39] Thus, not just admissions, but outreach programs were affected by the race ban.

Affirmative Action Programs Before the Race Ban

UC affirmative action efforts were characterized as “race-attentive” programs because race was one factor considered, but no student was to be admitted on the basis of race alone. With few exceptions, all applicants must meet UC academic requirements to be admitted.[40] Instead, efforts were directed toward bolstering the eligibility of underrepresented minority groups. In the mid-1980s, these included programs to encourage African Americans and Latinos to attend college, to provide counseling and tutoring to help retain more minorities in the UC system, and to work with public school teachers to raise the quality of teaching at schools with high minority enrollments.[41]

The Early Outreach Program (later the Early Academic Outreach Program) helped high school minority students take college preparatory classes. The program gave parents information about college entrance requirements and financial aid, brought students to campus for visits, and provided summer enrichment and UC minority students to act as tutors and role models.[42] A second key outreach program encouraged minority students to concentrate on mathematics, science, and engineering and offered internships, research support, and stipends for minority undergraduates studying these subjects.[43]

The Young Black Scholars program was a UC Los Angeles effort to increase representation of minority students by helping promising students prepare for college. It provided academic support and informal mentoring to ninth- through 12th-grade students in the Los Angeles school district and several surrounding communities. The academic support included workshops on writing skills, math, and science and preparation for college entrance exams. Community organizations provided mentors matched to the career, subject, or interests of the students. In 1995–96, the program had 800 students, most of whom were headed to college.[44]

UC affirmative action programs were never as well financed, widespread, comprehensive, or successful as one might hope. The Board of Regents often planned expanded outreach to African Americans and Latinos, but was not always successful in obtaining the requested state funding.[45]

A Period of Uncertainty About Outreach Programs

In July 1999, proposed legislation to exempt certain outreach efforts and the pursuit of diversity goals from the affirmative action ban was vetoed by the governor.[46] On November 30, 2000, the California Supreme Court ruled on a San Jose contracting program that government agencies could no longer limit recruitment efforts to women and minorities. It dismissed affirmative action programs as “proportional group representation” that grant preferences in favor of minorities, but gave limited guidance on how to construct programs that comply with Proposition 209.[47] Subsequently, a court distinguished between outreach efforts “designed to broaden the pool of potential applicants without reliance on . . . impermissible race or gender classifications” and those that discriminate against or grant preferences to individuals or groups based upon race or gender. The court declared the latter prohibited, but not the former.[48] The University of California, however, had reconstructed its programs to no longer use race and ethnicity in identifying recipients of outreach long before these court and legislative decisions were made.

Outreach Programs Under the Race Ban

To refocus the programs not to directly use race to identify schools to receive outreach, UC’s president, Richard C. Atkinson, directed the campuses to target schools that had significant educational disadvantages, such as limited college preparatory courses and a poor record of sending students to the university.[49] Even before any prohibition was issued against targeting outreach programs to particular races or ethnic groups, Atkinson had decided to focus programs using geographic distribution, income level, or lower socioeconomic background, and high schools with low numbers of students going to UC—criteria he claimed would primarily reach black and Latino high schools.[50]

In 1997, because of anticipated drops in the numbers of black and Latino students admitted, UC’s Board of Regents recommended a major expansion of, often doubling, the university’s college-prep programs in high schools and the extension of them deeper into middle and elementary schools.[51] The expanded effort included:

• Academic enrichment programs, such as the Early Academic Outreach Program now focused on disadvantaged schools.[52] The plan called for UC campuses to adopt 50 low-performing high schools, about 100 middle schools, and 300 elementary schools.[53] In 2000, UC was involved in 7 or 8 percent of schools in California.[54]

• Mentoring programs by which UC students make contact with California’s public school students and their parents.[55]

• Plans for improving teaching skills in low-performing schools and for teacher recruitment and retention programs.[56]

• Scholarships for disadvantaged students.[57]

• Programs to assist community college students in transferring to UC.[58]

Examples of programs to increase college eligibility among minority students are (1) UC Irvine’s Partnership to Accelerate College Eligibility (PACE), started in 1997 in five poor school districts to raise the reading skills of second graders, prepare middle school students for algebra, and get high school students ready for the SAT;[59] (2) Berkeley’s program, Break the Cycle, in which university students give individual math instruction to neighboring poor and minority students;[60] and (3) UC San Diego’s charter school, the Preuss School, which grooms needy middle and high school students for the rigors of elite colleges with in-depth instruction, extended class periods, longer than usual school days and school years, and mentoring.[61]

Yet, while UC outreach programs are no longer targeted by race or ethnicity, there are some privately funded programs for underrepresented minority groups. A UC Santa Barbara project, called Engaging Latino Communities for Education or ENLACE, was implemented in 2001 and funded through the W.K. Kellogg Foundation with a $1.5 million grant. The plan targeted three areas in California and called for educating families about college options, showing bilingual public service commercials and video histories of Latino leaders on cable stations, and assigning Latino college students as mentors to grade-schoolers. It emphasized literacy for students in elementary grades, college preparation for high school students, and retention for college students.[62]

Affirmative Action and Outreach at Professional Schools

Officials at UC medical and law schools recognize a vast need to increase the numbers of underrepresented students among enrollees in the professional schools.[63] To combat shortages of African American and Latino professionals in medicine and law, university officials emphasize a need for outreach targeted to underrepresented minority groups and for an overhaul of admissions to include nonacademic criteria and lowered entrance requirements, not necessarily nonqualifying ones, for these students. The decision to eliminate race-based affirmative action in admissions hurt professional schools through both outreach and admissions practices.[64]

Current outreach programs for professional education include high school science fairs aimed at motivating more young minority students to consider becoming physicians, and incentive programs, for example, that assist new medical school graduates with paying off large school loans in exchange for agreeing to work in underserved communities.[65]

Conclusion

The University of California has used a statewide 12.5 percent plan for college admissions for decades both with and without affirmative action. Bans on the use of race for admissions imposed in the late 1990s resulted in reductions in the already small proportions of African American, Hispanic, and Native American students admitted and enrolled in the system, as demonstrated here with undergraduate and professional school data. The university has instituted modifications to its admissions plan to help diversify the student population, including a 4 percent plan to admit the top students in any California high school, initiated for fall 2001, and a comprehensive review process, used first for fall 2002. These changes have led to small increases in the presence of these underrepresented minority groups. However, the success of the new policies is often judged against the year before the race ban was imposed, when anticipation of implementation had apparently already led to the dismantling of some affirmative action programs. The proportions of African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are not as high as those in the 1995–96 school year, when admissions processing occurred before the race ban was announced. Furthermore, the proportions of these underrepresented groups were not large even under affirmative action, and higher admission rates have not always translated into higher enrollment rates.

The University of California operates an array of outreach programs intended to increase students’ rates of eligibility for college. Before the race ban, these programs were known as affirmative action and targeted to minority students. Because of the race ban, the university targeted the programs more generally to disadvantaged students, doubled their outreach efforts and extended them deeper into middle and elementary schools. The effects of these efforts were also represented in the analysis of trends in admissions and enrollment data that revealed only small increases in the presence of underrepresented minority groups on UC campuses. However, the full effects of academic enrichment programs to middle and elementary school students will not be known for years to come.

The University of California system differs from those in Texas and Florida, which are analyzed below, in several ways. First, the analysis of California shows the effects of a race ban, since the percentage plan has been in place for decades. In Texas and Florida, analyses show the before and after effects of percentage plans adopted together with race bans. Second, the 12.5 percent plan applies only to California’s research institutions, that is, the University of California system. Texas and Florida imposed the percentage plan more broadly. Third, in California students must be in the top 12.5 percent of students statewide to gain admission to UC. The 4 percent plan relaxed this criterion so that the best students in each high school would qualify even if they were not in the top 12.5 percent statewide. In Texas and Florida the percentage is applied to the students’ high schools, not statewide.

STATE OF TEXAS

Overview

The March 1996 ruling in Hopwood v. State of Texas by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals abolished the use of race or ethnicity as a college recruitment, admission, financial aid, and student retention criterion in Texas.[66] Centering on the University of Texas School of Law, the ruling found that by considering race or ethnicity in its admissions process the law school was violating the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.[67] The court’s decision ended Texas’ use of the “Classic Model,” which incorporated affirmative action, for making admissions decisions.[68] With its history of segregation, Texas had been hindered in its efforts to establish an effective affirmative action college admissions policy. Partial success was only achieved in the late 1980s, when minority enrollment increased slowly and only slightly.[69]

The Hopwood decision has had a lasting impact on the participation of minority group members in Texas’ institutions of higher learning, especially at its flagship institutions. Minority undergraduate and graduate enrollment and admissions have largely, except for the rare instance, declined at Texas’ public institutions. This is true for the state’s premier schools and programs, including the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) for undergraduate schools and UT School of Law and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston School of Medicine (UTMB) for professional programs. To address the dearth of and decline in minority undergraduate students, Texas instituted a percentage plan aimed at maintaining minority group access to colleges and universities.[70] The burden of maintaining minorities’ access to professional programs has fallen to Texas’ public institutions of higher learning because the percentage plan does not apply to professional programs.

The following analysis reveals that Texas’ public institutions are providing fewer minorities with an opportunity to obtain a quality, if any, undergraduate education. Minority group members seeking to pursue professional academic training also face an often insurmountable barrier. Data analysis of undergraduate and professional enrollments and admissions pre- and post-Hopwood reveal an overall, sometimes drastic, decline in the number of minorities. This staff analysis updates the Commission’s earlier findings in its 2000 statement Toward an Understanding of Percentage Plans in Higher Education: Are They Effective Substitutes for Affirmative Action? which focused on UT-Austin. The current paper expands the analysis of professional programs to test the impact of the Hopwood decision on professional school admissions because Texas’ percentage plan does not apply to professional schools.[71] Data sources include the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Education Data Center; the University of Texas at Austin, Office of Admissions; and a report examining the implementation and results of the Texas Top 10 Percent Law.[72]