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"209"
Ruling Will Mean Creative Outreach Recruitment and admissions officials at UCSF say efforts to ban affirmative action have already ruptured their outreach to underrepresented minorities. But what’s more important, they say, is to reassure all prospective students and employees that the University wants them to apply. In the wake of Tuesday’s federal appeals court ruling to uphold California’s anti-affirmative action measure — Proposition 209 — Michael Adams, the university’s director of affirmative action and equal opportunity, says UCSF will need “a big welcome mat” to help recruit underrepresented minorities. He says it will take “massive education” and “creative” outreach programs to prevent the potential chilling effects of both Prop 209 and UC Regents Resolution SP-1, which bans the use of race and gender-based preferences to achieve diversity. “We now know that there’s some data that suggests that, African-American and Latino students are opting to go elsewhere, feeling they’re not welcome in (the UC) system,” says Adams. For instance, UCSF’s School of Medicine reported an 11 percent decline in 1995 and a 22 percent decline in 1996 in minority admissions. However, many factors influence dips and swells in enrollment, UC officials say, and the actual effects of Prop 209 and the Regents ban on affirmative action are not fully known. Michael Drake, associate dean for admissions in the School of Medicine, says Prop 209 restricts the University from targeting underrepresented minorities specifically. “But we are still very interested in students from diverse backgrounds,” he says. A report released last month by a subcommittee of the Chancellor’s Steering Committee on Diversity says, “UCSF can maintain its commitment to diversity, develop diversity goals (not quotas) around student body composition, and monitor success towards achieving such goals while still in compliance with Resolution SP-1.” One example of an effort already underway is the recent opening of a Latino Center for Medical Education in Fresno to boost recruitment and training among this group. Prop 209 says the state “shall not discriminate against, nor grant preferential treatment” to anybody on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in employment, education or contracting. However, Proposition 209 does not end UC’s affirmative action practices in hiring faculty and staff, Adams says. “As long as we insist on going after federal dollars to conduct research, teaching, and the delivery of health care, we must comply with the federal affirmative action requirements (for hiring),” Adams says. “Student issues are tougher, frankly, and the institution is going to have to create and work within 209 to try to represent diverse opportunities.” 1st appeared 4/11/97 |
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