Protesters
Slam UC Admissions Policy Protesters
Slam UC Admissions Policy
Noisy UCLA crowd storms hall, calls for reversal of affirmative action ban
Tanya Schevitz, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer Ê
Thursday, March 15, 2001
Los Angeles -- An angry crowd of University of California students, after demanding that UC regents rescind a 1995 ban on affirmative action in admissions, took over a hall at UCLA yesterday in an effort to gain leverage for their cause. The tactic worked: They forced the cancellation of a mayoral debate, former Speaker of the Assembly Antonio Villaraigosa pledged to intercede on their behalf, and student regent Justin Fong agreed to get the matter on the agenda of the regents' next meeting, in May. Villaraigosa and Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Los Angeles, two of the candidates running for Los Angeles mayor, turned out to support the students after they took over Royce Hall in the late afternoon.
"You didn't cancel a debate, you started one," Becerra told the crowd of 500 students. "This is an important demonstration of the commitment you have to the affirmative qualities of equality and justice," said Villaraigosa, a UCLA graduate with his own history of civil rights activism.
"This is not Mississippi, this is not Alabama, this is California . . . the state where people come from every corner of the world to realize the American Dream." As speaker of the Assembly, Villaraigosa served on the Board of Regents. The takeover ended peacefully when the students met the deadline laid down by UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale and marched out at 8 p.m., loudly chanting, "We are what diversity looks like."
The demonstration at Royce Hall, where 1,700 had been expected to attend the mayoral debate, came after a morning regents meeting at which students pleaded passionately with the board to send a message that the university welcomes minorities -- and to take a vote on the matter immediately. "You have the opportunity to right the wrong which has set off a wave of attacks on equality across the nation," UC student Luke Massie told the board.
"The damage that has been done is enormous." Only about 40 students were allowed into the morning meeting in the James West Alumni Center, and those students were carefully screened. Barricades ringed entrances, a dozen police vehicles blocked the front driveway and bomb- sniffing dogs roamed the halls. But the chant taken up by the 1,000 students rallying peacefully outside -- "UC regents, you can't hide, reverse the ban and turn the tide" -- could be heard inside the meeting room.
The regents said they would not take up the issue until they hear a report on its implications from UC President Richard Atkinson and his staff. They rebuffed calls from students to bring up the issue as an emergency resolution, saying that that action is reserved for a limited number of situations, such as disasters and administrative discipline.
Regent William Bagley, who abstained from the original 14-to-10 vote and has said he wants the regents to reconsider the ban, said he is not ready to raise the issue. Because the vote will be largely symbolic, he wants a decisive victory. Proposition 209, which was passed by voters in 1996 and bans the state from using race in hiring and education, remains in place.
Sue Johnson, chairwoman of the regents, said the current admissions process, coupled with about $250 million of outreach to disadvantaged students -- which includes visits to schools, mentoring and personal letters from the UC president -- is working. "I decided not to be coy and quiet and neutral. I don't favor the repeal," she said.
Regent Ward Connerly, who led the fight against using race, ethnicity and gender in admissions or hiring, said: "This argument that they don't feel welcome is bogus. There is no evidence of it. Why would students spend the hours and hours they do applying to UC if they don't feel welcome?"
After the meeting, the students got into a confrontation with one of their key supporters, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who sits on the board by virtue of his office. Bustamante was drowned out by jeers and chants as he tried to explain that there were not enough votes to deliver on their demands yesterday or today, when the meeting continues. "If we took the vote today, it wouldn't pass," Bustamante told the students.
"I think we can get everybody here in May. We are trying to go for the win." He said that key regents were missing and that a few are still on the fence. But UCLA senior Karren Lane, president of the campus African Student Union, interrupted the lieutenant governor, saying that if the supporters of affirmative action were serious about rescinding the ban, they would have ensured that everyone they needed would be present at the March meeting. "Our supporters (among the regents) knew that we had been organizing for a March vote," Lane said.
Later, after the students agreed to compromise and wait until May for a vote on overturning the ban, Lane said, "The real victory in the last four or five hours here is that we reclaimed our university." UC received more than 58,000 freshman applications this year. More African Americans and Latinos sought seats at UC's eight undergraduate campuses this year than when the university stopped considering race in admissions three years ago.
However, at the system's two most selective campuses, UC Berkeley and UCLA, African Americans and Latinos remain far behind the representation of whites and Asians. Janelle Charles, 16, a junior at Thurgood Marshall Academic High School in San Francisco, began to cry during the morning meeting as she told the regents that now is the time to act. "When I look in the mirror every day, I see a leader," she said. "When you look in the mirror, who do you see? Do you see a person who was strong and stood up for what is right, or do you see a person who was scared?"
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