Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/1998/04/29/strange_responses_at_berkley.php
Wednesday, April 29, 1998
This year, as a result of Proposition 209 which bans racial preferences, 191 blacks were admitted to the incoming freshman class, down from 562 last year before Proposition 209 went into effect.
Historically, Berkeley has been the most selective of California's public universities. What is happening because of Proposition 209 is actually a reallocation of some black applicants to somewhat less selective universities in the California system, less selective but still very good.
Thus, at the Riverside branch of the University of California, the number of black students accepted rose 34%. Before Proposition 209, many of those would undoubtedly have been accepted by Berkeley, then able to exercise a now illegal racial preference.
Naturally, proponents of Proposition 209 comment that these figures show that the new system is working well, and that applicants are being steered to universities for which their academic achievement qualifies them. After all, it is not a catastrophe for a student to attend Riverside, Santa Cruz or San Diego. One statistic that is seldom mentioned in these debates is the black dropout and failure rates at Berkeley and at UCLA, which is almost as selective as Berkeley.
Large percentages of black applicants admitted to the two most selective universities do not finish. Though administrators and many faculty members at Berkeley detest Proposition 209, and want much larger numbers of black students on campus on the name of 'diversity,' it seems a high price to pay for diversity if a large number of such students leave without a degree. Their experience of failure at Berkeley might have been an experience of success at Riverside.
The reaction this year at Berkeley by black students, faculty, and administrators, however, has been strange and indeed irrational. By and large, such politically-oriented blacks have been discouraging black applicants already accepted from coming to Berkeley. In effect, this is a sort of strike, or petulant protest, against Proposition 209.
In a revealing page one story in The New York Times, reporter Frank Bruni gives an account of this peculiar response. For example, the Director of the Black Recruitment and Retention Center, identified as a Ms. Inman, says that this year she can no longer in good conscience get on the phone and tell a black student who has been accepted by Berkeley to come there rather than choose someplace else,
'We told them that it's a very hostile environment, and that we're not welcome here, and they don't want us here because they're not letting us in,' said Inman. 'We aren't pushing them to come to Cal.'
The reporter, Mr. Bruni, says that several other university officials of the Black Recruitment and Retention Center echoed Inman's sentiments.
One's first response is to reflect that this is a very odd response for an entity called the Black Recruitment and Retention Center to take. Either it should change its name to the Black Discouragement Center, or it should get a new director and staff.
Another thing that leaps out at you is the fact that their anger is directed at Berkeley, which, after all, is only obeying the law — and, in fact, has been dragged kicking and screaming all the way. The Chancellor himself, Robert M. Berdahl, says he has made, in person, some fifty phone to applicants who have been admitted, trying to persuade them to come to Berkeley.
His staff has also sent out videos and other material to such prospective freshmen, held special receptions, and so on. 'We have done everything we can think of,' says the beleaguered Chancellor, and one knows that the poor man speaks the truth.
But the Black Recruitment and Retention Center thinks black students aren't welcome, because Berkeley is no longer able to give them a racial preference over other, and better qualified, applicants.
Over at the Office of Black Student Development, its director, Grace Carroll Massey, told Mr. Bruni that this year she decided not to encourage black students who had been admitted to come to Berkeley. When approached by such students and their parents, Massey advised them to go to another university. It is a good break for Berkeley that Massey is leaving her post for work elsewhere.
A professor of African-American Studies, a writer named June Jordan, told Mr. Bruni that she felt divided. This year she did 'implore' accepted black students to come to Berkeley, but nevertheless she felt the pull of the negative attitude held by other black faculty.
'What we're talking about,' she said, 'is that if you can't sit at the table, you're not going to ask anybody to pick up the crumbs that fall to the floor.'
Other black university officials and faculty members interviewed by Mr. Bruni held that officials of the university should have taken a moral stand against Proposition 209. It is not clear what this meant.
During the debate prior to the passing of Proposition 209, Berkeley officials were well represented among those opposing it. Possibly 'taking a moral stand' means civil disobedience, resignation from the university, or admitting less qualified black students in defiance of the law.
I don't know. It is notable that the four top officers of the Black Recruitment and Retention Center told Mr. Bruni that they all had been admitted to Berkeley under the old racial preference system, and almost certainly would not have been admitted today.
What all this seems to boil down to is that blacks at Berkeley are furious at no longer receiving preferential treatment that they did not deserve in the first place. They seem to be striking back angrily at such people as Chancellor Berdhal and the Berkeley administration, who in fact, would like to have the old, corrupt system back for reasons of 'diversity,' a vague concept that seems to mean only skin color, and a certain skin color at that. Thus Asian applicants to Berkeley, who get in on merit, do not count as 'diverse' in the lexicon of Diversicrats. In fact, under the old system, such 'minorities' as Asians and Jews were discriminated against by Berkeley.
My own high school, Stuyvesant, in New York City was one of the three most selective in that city. And still is. Then, as now, admission is based on a single admissions test. When I went to Stuyvesant, it was 90% Jewish. I guess I made it diverse. Today, Stuyvesant is mostly Asian.
And, naturally, a howl has been arising from black groups to the effect that Stuyvesant is not 'representative' of the population of New York, etc., etc. The admissions test is under fire, though it has worked well for decades. I hope that Stuyvesant can hold the line against this assault on its standards. After all, the school is important and famous precisely because of those standards.
The Berkeley administration doesn't know it, but Proposition 209 saved it from itself and returned it to the honest standards that made it important in the first place.