Michael Weiner Weiner is a fourth-year
history and political science student. His column analyzing issues
of interest to the UCLA community runs on Mondays. Send feedback to
[email protected].
The hearts of UC officials may have skipped a beat Nov. 30 when
the California Supreme Court sent down a major decision on the
scope of Proposition 209, the much ballyhooed 1996 ballot measure
that banned affirmative action.
The decision, rejecting a San Jose outreach program for minority
business owners, seemed to cast doubt on the legitimacy of outreach
to underrepresented minority groups ““ which comprises the
core of the University of California’s post-affirmative
action strategy for ensuring a diverse student body.
But after pouring over Justice Janice Rogers Brown’s
vitriolic majority opinion, the university’s lawyers
concluded that almost all of the UC’s outreach programs are
in accordance with the court’s narrow interpretation of 209.
The main exception, said UC Spokesman Terry Lightfoot, is what is
known as targeted informational outreach, in which promotional
materials are sent specifically to prospective students from
underrepresented minority groups. That practice is still under
review.
According to Lightfoot, the university has been tweaking its
outreach programs in order to comply with the law since the
state’s voters approved Proposition 209. The central change
is that outreach programs must now target students based only on
their socioeconomic background, not on their race, ethnicity or
gender.
The main premise of outreach, which includes everything from
teacher training and curriculum development to student-initiated
tutoring and mentoring programs, is that the University of
California can mobilize its tremendous resources to make a
significant difference in the academic performance of K-12 minority
students and those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
Thus, when the time comes to go to college, more of those students
will have a chance of getting into UC schools, including the
flagship campuses at Berkeley and Los Angeles.
Although the court decision does not appear to threaten the
university’s outreach-centered strategy, it does highlight
the difficulty of promoting campus diversity without addressing the
admissions process. While it is an important piece of the puzzle,
outreach is unlikely to have a significant effect on campus
diversity on its own, as UC officials so fervently hope.
Indeed, K-12 outreach has become the holy grail of the
university’s post-209 era. UC officials aren’t simply
hoping that the strategy will successfully raise diversity to
earlier levels; they’re banking on it. The UC Board of
Regents has earmarked $250 million for outreach programs this year
alone. That’s up from just $60 million five years ago.
While there is no doubt that outreach should play an important
role in promoting diversity in the University of California, the
holy grail strategy operates under an extremely flawed assumption:
that the UC can singlehandedly solve the degradation and inequality
in California’s K-12 schools. Indeed, these are the very
problems that made affirmative action in admissions a necessity in
the first place.
There is little doubt that affirmative action was a Band-Aid,
that the real problem lies in the state’s unequal public
education system. But affirmative action provided a uniform method
to level the playing field, while outreach programs, no matter how
well-intentioned, are necessarily scattershot, providing teacher
training here and mentoring there, but with no systematic approach
to give disadvantaged students statewide a more equal chance.
In order to make a real difference, to really ensure that the
University of California ““ including UC Berkeley and UCLA
““ retains its diversity, UC officials must enact changes in
the admissions process as well as continue their worthy, yet
flawed, outreach campaign. But contrary to the belief of many
campus activists, diversity can be achieved without affirmative
action, through a more holistic admissions system that recognizes
that student achievement and potential cannot be so easily
standardized into “objective” measures.
Perhaps implicitly recognizing the limits of outreach, officials
and faculty members throughout the UC system are in the process of
examining preliminary proposals for reforming the admissions
process. Potential changes include eliminating or de-emphasizing
the SAT and giving extra consideration to the participants of
outreach programs. While Lightfoot made it clear that there is no
timetable for enacting such proposals and that the discussions
taking place may or may not lead to any specific changes, the fact
that officials are even considering systematic admissions reform is
a good sign.
At the very least, the Supreme Court’s decision may spur
members of the university community to reconsider their
well-intentioned, yet deeply flawed, outreach-centered strategy.
Outreach is important, but it is not a holy grail.