UCLA Law Students Protest Against Admission Policies

Black Issues in Higher Education, Nov 11, 1999

LOS ANGELES -- About 200 students and professors staged a walkout here late last month to protest admissions policies at the University of California-Los Angeles where only two Black students are among the law school's freshman class.

Protesters at the two-hour teach-in urged law school admissions officials to do more to recruit ethnic minorities, especially in the wake of Proposition 209, the statewide ballot measure that bars ethnic and gender considerations in state hiring, contracting and public university admissions.

"It's very difficult -- there are times I feel isolated and excluded, an outcast from my classmates," says Crystal James, one of the two African American students admitted among all the 286 new students this fall.

The university's incoming law school class has 126 Whites, 66 Asian Americans, 17 Hispanics students and one American Indian. The ethnic background of the remaining 74 students was not known.

In 1996, the class that enrolled before Proposition 209, there were 19 Black students, 45 Hispanics, 48 Asian Americans, five American Indians and 188 Whites or those whose ethnicity was unknown.

Fewer ethnic minorities are being accepted but many of those who are eligible choose to attend a different college, law school officials say. Of the 233 Black students who applied this year, 18 were admitted but just two enrolled. In 1996, 399 Black students applied, 104 were admitted and 19 enrolled.

"The realworld has people of color in it. You can't teach in a segregated atmosphere -- it just can't be done," says professor Gary Blasi.

Protesters urged the university to subsidize law school admissions test preparations for disadvantaged students and recommended minority students be given "significant decision-making power" in evaluating law school applications.

University of California system rules prohibit students from voting on the admission of other students, says law school dean Jon Varat, adding that he, too, is unhappy with the lack of diversity.