Protesters Want Racial Profiling at UCLA

Some activists in the black community are upset at the black enrollment at UCLA for the coming year:

Leaders in Los Angeles' African American community called Thursday for the overhaul of UCLA's undergraduate admissions practices, charging that many black applicants were unfairly rejected by the university.

The demand for reforms follows the disclosure two weeks ago that blacks account for only 96, or 2%, of the more than 4,700 freshmen expected to enroll at UCLA this fall. That is the lowest level in more than three decades, and gives UCLA a lower percentage of African American freshmen than USC or UC Berkeley.

The call for changes was also propelled by this week's release of a report by researchers at UCLA's Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies that was sharply critical of the university's freshmen admissions procedures.

In a news conference on campus, a newly formed group consisting of African American religious, civic, alumni and student leaders said UCLA's admissions practices discriminate against blacks.

So is UCLA really discriminating against black students? Of course not. What's going on is the result of Proposition 209 which made it illegal for universities to consider race when judging applications for admittance. In other words, the state universities are now required to judge applicants not by the "color of their skin, but by the content of their character". Sounds fair to me, but the activists aren't happy.

The activists called for a complete overhaul of admissions practices to bring about "immediate and demonstrative actions to increase African American admissions and enrollment." They did not offer specifics other than urging a more holistic approach that would put applicants' achievements and performance in a fairer context.

A "fairer context"? What is that? They obviously feel that objective test results and academic achievement must be offset by touchy-feely stuff in order to get their numbers up. How fair is that to other students?

And could it also be that prospective black students are rejecting UCLA as opposed to the other way around?

He added that UCLA's numbers of African American students have fallen to such low levels that even when black prospective students visit the campus, "It becomes a tough sell when they Â… don't see any other people like themselves."

For a high performing black student, there are lots of options at lots of schools, and UCLA might not be high on their list.

Ward Connerly also has some thoughts on the issue:

Ward Connerly, a former UC regent and leading opponent of affirmative action, took issue with the Bunche report, saying that the main problem is a small pool of high-performing black high school students.

Maybe the activists should work on the high illegitimacy rates, gang problems, and lack of nuclear families in the black community rather than criticize UCLA.