AROUND HIGHER EDUCATION: Minority admissions drop at Calif. colleges

The Associated Press BERKELEY, Calif. -- Two of California's flagship universities reported sharp drops in the number of minority students they will admit this fall in the first undergraduate classes to be affected by the state's sweeping ban on racial preferences. The number of blacks, Hispanics and American Indians offered admission to the University of California at Berkeley as freshmen plunged 61 percent from a year ago. At UCLA, the drop was 36 percent. Other campuses of the huge university system -- at San Diego, Irvine and Davis -- have already reported similar results. Only the Riverside campus showed sizable increases in all ethnic groups. The figures released Tuesday are for admissions only. Enrollment, which will be much smaller, will not be known until students respond to acceptance letters going out this week. Still, no one is happy with the news. ''We've got to take this seriously. Our future as a university and the future of the state of California is at stake,'' Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl said. Proposition 209, approved in November 1996, says state and local governments, as well as universities, cannot discriminate against or give preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color or ethnicity. The issue is being closely watched across the nation, and is facing legal challenges in several states. ''I take no comfort in saying I was right, but it really does point out that the K-12 system has been cheating a large number of black and Latino students and they've been cheating themselves,'' said Ward Connerly, the UC regent who led the fight to drop race and gender preferences in admissions. Berkeley students used the numbers to call for the return of affirmative action, with one student noting that minorities are well on their "way to becoming extinct.'' According to the figures released Tuesday, 191 black students were admitted to Berkeley for this fall, down from 562 a year ago; 434 Hispanics were admitted, compared to 1,045; and 27 American Indians, down from 69. Students the university considers to be underrepresented minorities comprise 10.4 percent of the incoming class, compared to 23.1 percent last year. The number of whites decreased slightly, to 2,674 from 2,725. Asians, who make up the largest ethnic group on campus and did not get preferential treatment under the old system, increased slightly to 2,998 from 2,925. Officials used a revised policy in which every application was read twice and socioeconomic factors were taken into account.