Barber: Why so few blacks, Latinos at UCSD?

Allegations of racism to black students have rocked the UCSD campus. (Photo by Alex Hansen / Wikipedia Commons)

Never mind that last month’s “Compton Cookout” was the handiwork of “Jigaboo Jones,” an African American once described as a criminal turned comedian, to promote his newest DVD.

Never mind that the crowd at this event was multiracial.

Never mind that white UC San Diego students who helped initiate and/or attended the event should have anticipated that it, and they, would be decried as racist.

And never mind that racists in the group, if any, don’t represent the racial attitude of most whites in this country any more than Compton’s infamous gangs and ghettos represent most blacks.

UCSD’s administration rushed to atone for this “hurtful” incident by condoning the Black Student Union’s view that the “Cookout” exemplified the rampant racism on campus that accounts for too few minority (meaning blacks and Latinos, excluding Asians) faculty members and students at the university. Chancellor Marye Ann Foxe has pledged to:

– “Fund for three years BSU-initiated yield programs to increase the diversity of the undergraduate student body.”

– Fund the “program coordinator position for the African American Studies Minor and Chicano/a Latino/an Arts and Humanities Minor.”

– Review requests by the various colleges of UCSD “to establish [additional] campuswide diversity curricular requirement for undergraduates.”

– “Identify appropriate places on campus for the display of outdoor and/or indoor, permanent and/or rotating art representative of underrepresented minority communities.”

– “Create a [faculty] task force to promote recruitment, support and retention of underrepresented [minority] faculty, make sure that all faculty searches adhere to best practices on diversity considerations; as funding becomes available, reactivate six unfilled faculty positions dedicated to African Diaspora, Indigenous Studies or California cultures; allocate three new faculty positions over the next three years for hires that will enhance diversity.”

Related Links: More by Beth | Politics | Opinion |  Yates: Ire about racism at UCSD is misguided

Apparently, quotas in faculty positions are permissible.

Quite a haul to compensate for an allegation that one infantile off-campus party demonstrates racism at UCSD so pervasive that African Americans and Latinos there fear for their safety and self-esteem.

Why the Black Student Union would add so much injury to insult is understandable: BSU gets more clout. African Americans and Latino students get more African Americans and Latino takes on history. African American and Latino professors get more jobs.

Why the UCSD administration would so quickly ratify that injury is understandable too: It’s a natural consequence of a UC system steeped in political correctness.

There are more salient factors in the lesser numbers of African American and Latino students and faculty at UCSD: Fewer African American and Latino high school students have the grade point averages, test scores and course work required to enter any UC school.

In the 2007-08 school year (the latest available on the state Department of Education Web site), the San Diego Unified School District reports, 11 percent of the 5,562 African American students in grades 9 through 12 dropped out; 13.2 percent of the 17,170 Latinos; 5.5 percent of the 10,672 whites; 3.1 percent of the 3,412 Asians; 4.2 percent of the 3,007 Filipinos. That’s not counting the 46 African American students, the 118 Latino students and the 52 white students who dropped out in grades 7 and 8.

Of the more than 97,000 students the district tested in the 2007-08 school year, 47 percent were proficient and above in language arts, 41 percent were proficient and above in math, 30 percent were proficient and above in science and 34 percent were proficient and above in history and social science.

(The next school year showed considerable improvement: 52 percent of students in the San Diego Unified District were proficient and above in language arts, 45 percent were proficient and above in math, 30 percent were proficient and above in science and 40 percent were proficient and above in history and social science.)

Of the 6,778 students who graduated in June 2008, 2,917 completed the course work to make them UC and CSU eligible. Of the 806 African Americans, 261, or 32 percent, completed the courses; of the 2,181 Latinos, 653, or 29.9 percent; of the 2,324 whites, 1245, or 53.6 percent; of the 702 Asians, 409, or 58.3 percent; of the 666 Filipinos, 305, or 45.8 percent.

That’s not a large pool of academically qualified African American and Latino students from which to draw.

The UC Web site has a neat feature, “Statfinder“. It produces tables of student information according to dozens of characteristics you can choose — race/ethnicity, high school GPA, scores on several standardized tests, parental income and persistence to graduation among them.

A table of the (unweighted) high-school GPAs of students — who reside in California and applied to become a freshman at UCSD in the 2008-09 school year — indicates that 21.2 percent of 1,537 African American applicants were accepted for admission, 35.1 percent of 7,398 Latino applicants, 46.1 percent of 17,921 Asian/Filipino/Pacific Islander applicants and 40.8 percent of 13,095 whites.

Who decided to attend UCSD? 17.5 percent of the 326 African Americans accepted for admission; 21.5 percent of the 2,598 Latinos, 29.9 percent of 7,966 Asians/Filipinos/Pacific Islanders and 18.2 percent of 5,388 whites.

Curiously, among these groups, the higher the students’ high-school GPA, the less likely they enrolled at UCSD. In every group, the percentage of applicants whose GPA was 4.0 or better plummeted. Why? Probably not finances. Many if not most UC students get some sort of financial aid, and these students can get scholarships. Apparently, UCSD doesn’t offer what they wanted. It was a backup, not first choice.

If what these smartest students in every group wanted isn’t at UCSD, will the additional African American and Latino professors and history courses to which the administration has committed turn the tide? Will the faculty Senate’s demand that students who are members of “underrepresented minorities” be assessed far less on academic achievement and far more on overcoming their life challenges?

We’re about to find out.

Beth Barber is an SDNN political columnist. She can be reached at Politics(a)SDNN.com

Tags: African American Studies, Black Student Union, Chicano Studies, Compton Cookout, csu, Jigaboo Jones, Marye Ann Foxe, SDNN, uc, UCSD

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 10:22 am and is filed under Columns, Politics Opinion . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.