Class
action Rally demonstrates growing opposition to UC affirmative action ban Class
action Rally demonstrates growing opposition to UC affirmative action ban
By Tali Woodward
Protest organizers are calling the March 8 affirmative action rally on the UC Berkeley campus the largest since the UC Regents banned the use of ethnicity in admissions decisions. While UC police estimated the crowd at just over 1,000, organizers say that 6,000 people descended on Berkeley as part of the statewide protest.
And they argue that strong attendance indicates pressure to reverse the 1995 ban is growing. "People have seen how devastating the ban has been," Tania Kappner, an Oakland teacher who helped organize the event, told the Bay Guardian. "I think this really was a turning point." The number of underrepresented minorities admitted to Berkeley has effectively been cut in half since the ban--the first of its kind in the U.S.--took effect.
Minority enrollment at UC Berkeley's law school, Boalt Hall, has been particularly hard hit. In 1997 only 14 Latinos and one African American enrolled in a class of 273; many minority students who were admitted chose to go to other schools. Approximately 150 students from the law school attended the March 8 rally.
First-year Boalt student Carlie Ware, who is one of seven African Americans in her class, said that affirmative action is particularly important at Boalt because it is "one of the only elite public law schools in the country." Ware said that she expected UC Berkeley to be less "stuffy" than Yale University, where she went as an undergraduate, but the lack of diversity "makes it more difficult for students of color who do get in."
During class discussions other students often expect her to speak for all African Americans, she said. Boalt professor Ian Haney Lopez, who also attended the rally, argued that affirmative action is essentially about "giving everyone the opportunity to share in scant public resources." State voters passed Proposition 209, which outlawed affirmative action in all state programs, in 1996.
And while 209 can only be undone by voter initiative, Haney Lopez said that a reversal of the regents' ban would reduce the feeling that the institution doesn't welcome minority students. Dozens of San Francisco high schoolers also made it to Berkeley, despite some controversy over school district support of the protest (See S.F. Confidential, page 15). "It's a good thing there are so many people here," Sam Wallace, a senior at Lincoln High School, told us. "I think a lot of people are like me and aren't going to a UC, but they still feel they should be here."
A ninth-grader from Mission High said, "I think affirmative action is right; the UC system should be more diverse," adding that she hopes support for affirmative action in California will "influence the rest of the country." The protest was organized by Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary, but it was supported by several unions and more than 500 UC professors. Other student groups have recently said they will not help with university recruitment until the ban is reversed.
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