Grad admissions weigh ethnicity, gender impact
By Laryssa Kreiselmeyer
Although the affirmative action policies of graduate programs
differ from undergraduate programs, the 1996 decision of California
voters will affect both alike.
California is the state that developed affirmative action in
1964. Now, in 1995, these policies are under fire in a
controversial battle that reaches beyond the classroom and into the
courtroom.
The 1978 Bakke vs. UC Regents decision, overturned UC Davis
Medical School’s racial quota system. The Supreme Court’s decision
made admission solely on the basis of race illegal. Today, UC
policies allow for race as one factor considered in admission.
The primary admissions qualifications for any professional or
departmental grad program is a 3.0 GPA and a bachelor’s degree from
an accredited institution.
However, it is up to individual departments and professional
schools such as law, medicine, nursing, dentistry and architecture,
to determine their own methods of evaluating applicants for
admission.
On the nursing school’s application review sheet, applicants are
given points in a special section devoted to disadvantagment and
multicultural experience in order to meet with Southern
California’s multicultural needs.
This section only constitutes 15 percent of the application and
applies to whites as well as minorities, according to Diane Cooper,
associate dean for student affairs at the nursing school.
"We’re not giving extra points just because you’re black or
Hispanic," said Cooper. She explained that there is no quota system
in place and the board that reviews the applications never sees the
applicants face to face.
"I think it is an affirmative action policy. Over the years we
have looked seriously at it and I think we’re about as fair as we
can be," she said.
Twenty years ago, the federal government identified
underrepresented ethnic groups in the healthcare field and, in
conjunction with the Association of American Medical Colleges,
required that applicants receive financial and academic assistance
according to their ethnic background and financial disadvantage,
said Louise Howard, director of learning enhancement and
development at the medical school.
At the law school, 60 percent of applicants are admitted
strictly on a numerical index, namely their grade point average and
score on the LSAT. The remaining 40 percent of applicants are
accepted according to a "multifactor approach," explained Julian
Eule, a professor of law.
One of the factors  including economic disadvantage and
life experience  was race, which plays a "significant role"
in the acceptance decision, he said.
Eule said that he thinks all applicants should be accepted
according to the multifactor approach to comprise a "better student
body." The difference between a 3.1 and a 3.9 GPA is a slight one,
Euule said.
Existing admittance policy at the law school has been in place
for 20 years, but underwent changes after the Bakke case in order
to conform with the Supreme Court decision.
Eule said that the most important thing now is to see what will
become of the Civil Rights Initiative in the 1996 election. This
initiative could eliminate any official considerations of race or
gender in hiring and admissions decisions.
Gov. Pete Wilson and 73 percent of polled Californians believe
that race should not have any place in admissions decisions.
"We haven’t yet achieved the ideal of a truly colorblind
meritocracy and we must do so. It’s not right or fair to …
replace one form of discrimination with another," said Wilson in
February.
UC Regents are still as involved in the controversy as they were
in 1978.
"I think this is the beginning of a showdown at the O.K. Corral
over the issue of race in this country, and I think it’s about
time," said Regent Ward Connerly.
He said that the presence of affirmative action policies improve
the status of minorities, but that they have "created a lot of
resentment and made the credentials of all blacks in powerful
positions somehow suspect."
But others maintain affirmative action serves a real need.
"Most of the critics of affirmative action have been privileged
their whole lives. They went to the best schools, had the best
training and they think that everyone else had the same
opportunities and privileges. That’s just not how it is," said
Diana Ponce-Gomez, a UCLA student who was quoted in a March
interview with the Christian Science Monitor.