Mandy Suhr

Staff Writer

For the first time since California outlawed the consideration of race, ethnicity, and gender in hiring, contracting, and university admissions in 1997, admissions for minorities has increased in the state's university system.

African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are considered underrepresented because of their low proportion in the California university system among eligible applicants. After race and ethnicity were eliminated in the admissions process, the number of such students being accepted to the universities fell dramatically.

The University of California announced last week that for the first time since 1997, the last year before the ban on affirmative action was put into effect, a higher number of underrepresented minority students has been admitted for the fall 2002 semester. Latino, African-American, and Native American students constituted 19.1 percent of admitted students, compared to 18.8 percent five years ago, before the affirmative action ban was enacted.

In addition, the percentages of African-Americans and Latinos rose at UCLA-the UC system's most popular campus. The university's flagship campus, UC Berkley, however, experienced virtually no change in admissions percentages among minorities.

Among the various University of California campuses, women also make up a growing proportion of the admitted freshmen class at around 57 percent this year.

The university system of California has been put under pressure by the legislature to broaden the racial diversity of its student body, especially at the most competitive institutions.

Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante appreciated the progress made by the university, but he also said more needs to be done.

``We've had five years to try to let under-represented minority students know that the unwelcome mat was no longer out at UC,'' Bustamante said. ``The legislature has intervened again and again to make sure the UC reaches out to these groups. I'm glad to see that we've made progress, but we still have a long way to go.''

The university did decide in November to alter the admissions policy to factor in information such as a student's success in overcoming economic and educational disadvantages in the selection process. Some criticized this policy, saying that it was really a way to bring affirmative action in through a back door. Officials at the university, however, say that the new policy played only a small role in the new gains in minority admissions.

The competition to get admitted into the most selective university campuses in the state was tough. At UCLA, admissions letters were sent to 21 percent or 9,350 students of the record setting 43,396 who applied. This figure makes UCLA not only the most popular UC campus, but also the most popular campus in the nation.

UCLA admissions director Vu Tran described the makeup of this most popular school's student body: ``The admission of freshmen this year reflects the fact that we continue to attract a very diverse population of students.''

Indeed, the numbers do reflect diversity at UCLA. Of those admitted to next year's fall class, 3.3 percent were African-American, somewhat up from 2.9 percent last year. Latinos, who made up 12.1% of the students last year, constituted 13.3 percent of those admitted. Asian-Americans actually represent the largest amount of students in the incoming freshmen class, slightly up from last year, at 42 percent.

At Berkley, where about one-fourth of the applicants were admitted, underrepresented minorities only showed admissions gains of 0.4 percent.

Now that the letters of admission are sent, UC begins the next phase, which we as a college community can identify with, of trying to convince those admitted to enroll. Many students have multiple offers from various UC campuses as well as from other public and private universities.