By Marjorie Hernandez
Daily Bruin Reporter Second-year law student Lena Hines remembers a
time when a class discussion turned into more than just a lesson in
law. When a classmate expressed an inability to understand why an
African American who could “pass” as white would raise
a legal separate but equal issue if the individual could take on
the identity of a white person, Hines was shocked and frustrated.
She sat through the discussion and later left in tears. “I
was insulted and hurt … I was done for the rest of the
day,” she said. “But I cried my eyes out, not because I
was hurt, but because I was mad at myself that I didn’t
respond and that I let that comment fly in my classroom. “You
just don’t walk away from that. I sat in my next class only
to think what I should have said.” Hines, one of the two
African American students admitted in 1999, looks back on that
incident with a renewed perspective. “These are the
viewpoints that (the students) have developed because of their
experiences,” she said. “They are bringing to
discussion things that they have learned from their life, and I
can’t condemn them for that. “But I can condemn the law
school for not trying to create a student body where certain
students would not feel included in the law school community
because of their race,” she continued. But despite her
first-year experience, Hines said she would enter UCLA School of
Law again in a heartbeat and encourages other students to apply and
become part of the solution.
Enrollment decrease The UC Board of Regents
passed SP-1 in 1995, ending the use of affirmative action in
admissions throughout the UC system. A year later, California
voters passed Proposition 209, which ended the use of affirmative
action in public entities in the state, reaffirming the ban
throughout the university. Since the end of affirmative action,
UCLA and other state law schools have seen considerable drops in
African American and Latino enrollments. “The law represents
our attempt to maintain a stable society. It represents our attempt
to create a world that is open for everyone,” said Marky
Keaton, the only African American male admitted to the law school
this year. “And if lawyers fail to do that, if law students
fail to do that, then we can’t expect it from any other
segment of our society.” Others say the opposite. “The
important question isn’t what fraction of the law school is
of one group or another group,”said Eugene Volokh, a law
professor of free speech, copyright and firearms regulation who
helped write Proposition 209. “The question is whether the
admission standards are fair and colorblind.” At the law
school, 1998 admission numbers experienced a 66 percent decline in
Latino students and more than 87 percent decline in African
American enrollment compared to 1990-1994 average admission
numbers. This year, 13 African American students were admitted,
compared to 104 in 1996. Although the number of Latino students
increased this year to 72 from the previous year’s enrollment
of 58, it is still a substantial drop from 108 students in 1996.
Some faculty members said the decline in underrepresented students
at the law school affects the quality of education other students
receive. “The lack of diversity certainly harms the people
who applied to the law school but did not get in,” said Gary
Blasi, a clinical and public interest law professor. “But it
also harms every white or Asian American student who is here
because their education is without the benefit of the perspectives
those now absent students once brought to classroom
discussions,” he continued. Administrators and faculty at the
law school are struggling to make the educational environment more
diverse while following the law of the state. Members of the
admissions task force met last Friday to discuss possible
amendments to the policies. “There is no lack of dedication,
devotion or energy,” said Law School Dean Jonathan Varat.
“What is hard is to figure out the most effective way to
deploy it when you can’t use race conscious affirmative
action. And that’s just something that’s not easy to
deal with.” The lack of diversity may reach farther than the
walls of California’s public law schools. Statistics show a
gap between the state population and the numbers of African
Americans and Latinos practicing law in California. According to a
memorandum released by the UCLA Law Fellows Program, 1990
statistics showed that 7.4 percent of California’s population
consisted of African Americans, but only 2.4 percent were
practicing lawyers. Meanwhile, Latinos constituted 26 percent of
the state’s population but fewer than 5 percent were lawyers.
The drop in the numbers of underrepresented students reached a
boiling point in 1999 when only two African Americans were admitted
into the UCLA School of Law. For Keaton, the low rates of students
of color at the school is disturbing. “We want people to
understand that this issue, the issue of a diverse student body at
the law school, is one that affects actual living people,”
Keaton said. “Every time that the law school doesn’t
enroll a diverse student body, that represents actual lives that
are being affected. “It’s not just something in a
scholarly paper. Those are students who are missing out on an
opportunity ““ actual human beings who are being
affected.” Students are currently admitted based on academic
performance, the Law School Admission Test score and other factors
such as overcoming educational and economical hardships. “If
the claim is that you should let in one people of a particular race
just because we want to have more people of that particular race, I
think that is just wrong,” Volokh said. “It is contrary
to Proposition 209 and I think it is contrary to fundamental
principles of equality.” But other faculty members say
adequate diversity cannot be obtained without affirmative action.
“You cannot, at the same time, preserve diversity and rely on
the LSAT as heavily as we and every other law school has without
using affirmative action. It is just not possible,” Blasi
said. “You can do somewhat better with those constraints and
there are slightly better ways to do things, and I think
that’s what we are struggling with now.” “If
there was a silver bullet, we would have found it already,”
Blasi continued. But lost in the debate over minority admissions
are those minorities whose numbers have increased since the end of
affirmative action ““ women, Asians and Pacific Islanders.
Mobilizing outreach initiatives In an attempt
to increase the incoming pool of applicants, the UCLA School of Law
launched the Law Fellows Early Academic Outreach Program in 1997.
The Law Fellows programs increases the “pipeline” of
prospective law students by providing a mentoring and support
system that assists undergraduates from economically or
educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. According to the executive
director of outreach for the law school, Leo Trujillo-Cox, the
program’s goal is to increase the competitiveness of
underrepresented students who fit the socio-economic criteria.
Funding for the outreach program will amount to about $230,000 for
the 1999-2000 fiscal year, with additional $170,000 in private
donations from the Wallis Foundation. The Law Fellows Program
currently assists 47 students from UCLA, Occidental College, USC,
Cal State Northridge, Los Angeles and Long Beach. But Trujillo-Cox
said political solutions should also be sought to increase the
number of underrepresented students. “I don’t think any
of us have done enough,” Trujillo-Cox said. “A lot of
people have worked very hard to remedy an extremely complex and
confounding situation. But there is always more work to be
done.”