UC Berkeley and UCLA: Double Black, Latina/o, Native American, and Other Underrepresented Minority S

There is absolutely no shortage of immensely talented and highly qualified Latina/o, black, and Native American high school students that applied to UC Berkeley and UCLA for Fall 2012 admissions, but the most elite UC campuses continue to discriminate against underrepresented minority students in the admissions process. Many of the Latina/o, black, and Native American students who were rejected are standing up to fight for themselves and their communities by refusing to accept the resegregation of higher education and are appealing their admission decisions to UC Berkeley and UCLA.

These determined young leaders of the new civil rights and student movement include: a Latina student from Los Angeles with a GPA of 3.8 who is a future anthropologist with a talent for writing.  Determined to excel she spent many late nights on YouTube teaching herself math using videos others had posted.  She was an example to students at her school as part of the Youth Empowerment Council where she spoke to numerous classes on pursuing higher education.  Another student is Nigerian and excelled at academics and basketball and is currently the team captain; or a Latino student who commutes from his home in housing projects, many miles every day using train and bus transportation to go to a higher quality school.  He returns at home at night and has to walk through various gang territories to get home, all out of a desire to not succumb to the violence, gangs and drugs in his surroundings.  He has managed to excel to the top of his class and show his younger sister it is possible to get a better life.  

All of these students and many other underrepresented minority students are continuing to file appeals to UC Berkeley or UCLA for their admission.

Although underrepresented minority students make up almost half of California’s high-school graduates, UC Berkeley, out of a class of 9,348 California-resident students, admitted only 324 (3.5%) black California-resident freshmen and 1,660 (12.7%) Latina/o California-resident freshmen. Similarly, UCLA, out of a class of 9,263 California resident students, admitted only 348 black students (3.8%) and 1,958 Latino/a students (21.1%).

In addition to the scandalously low numbers, the discrimination in admissions policies can be seen in the admissions rate: UCB and UCLA admitted a smaller proportion of Latina/o and black applicants than it admits of white applicants, although all are UC-qualified. This spring, UCB admitted only 13.5% of all the black applicants and 16.5% of all the Latina/o applicants, while admitting 24.6% of all the white applicants; and UCLA only admitted 13% of all the Latino/a applicants and 11% of all the black applicants, while admitting 18% of all the white applicants.

Standardized test scores on the SAT and ACT do not accurately predict academic college performance for any racial group, as admitted by the test makers themselves, and correlate even less with college success for black, Latino/a and Native American students.

The black, Latina/o, and other underrepresented minority students who make up the vast majority of Los Angeles students are equal to their peers in every way and deserve to attend this state’s best public universities.