Educational outreach has played an important role in creating
diversity at the University of California for more than 40
years.
But outreach programs have never been more crucial to
maintaining the system’s commitment to diversity than in the
past eight years, when the passing of anti-affirmative action
policies resulted in a noticeable drop in minority enrollment.
In the space of two years, the UC Board of Regents and
California voters approved two controversial initiatives affecting
the impact of race in public policy.
In 1995, the regents passed SP-1, banning the consideration of
race, ethnicity and gender in UC admissions. In 1996, Proposition
209 made racial considerations by state-funded agencies
illegal.
In the aftermath of these decisions, UC officials had to figure
out how to ensure that the university could educate a broad
spectrum of the state within the confines of a new policy
environment.
“Once SP-1 passes and (Proposition) 209 passes, the goal
of the university is still the same because there is a
responsibility to educate a cross-section of the state,” said
Jack Sutton, director of the UCLA Outreach Steering Committee.
In earlier years, UC’s outreach programs went hand in hand
with racial considerations. When SP-1 was passed, the regents
created the Outreach Task Force to maintain enrollment of
underrepresented groups with the restriction that outreach programs
could not target members of specific racial groups.
The task force recommended that the UC focus its efforts on
students considered “educationally disadvantaged,” a
broad term that can include students attending lower tier K-12
schools and those with troubled family backgrounds.
The task force found that many students belonging to
underrepresented racial and ethnic groups could also be considered
educationally disadvantaged, meaning many outreach programs were
able to continue to target the same students after SP-1.
“Did it change where we worked? Not a whole lot,”
Sutton said.
After SP-1, UC outreach broadened in two ways: more students
outside of underrepresented racial groups took part in outreach,
and new programs were created.
“We have a high proportion now of white and Asian
students, all of whom are disadvantaged,” said Margaret
Heisel, associate to UC outreach vice president Winston Doby.
The task force also proposed the UC expand outreach by forming
partnerships with underperforming schools, many of which have high
proportions of underrepresented students.
However, SP-1 and Proposition 209 also made some students
ineligible for outreach.
“The outreach programs used to be able to target African
American and Latino students in high performing schools. Once
(Proposition) 209 got passed you could no longer do that,”
said Jeannie Oakes, director of UC All Campus Consortium on
Research for Diversity.
While Proposition 209 prohibited the UC from targeting these
schools explicitly for the racial makeup of their student bodies,
the partnerships were intended to ensure that underrepresented
students would continue to apply to the UC.
“The target of those programs was to maintain
diversity,” Sutton said.
A key component of these partnerships is the teacher
professional development program, which has received the most
funding by far since its creation in 1998.
This program targets inexperienced teachers at underachieving
schools and puts them through training.
In 2000, funding peaked for the development program, with $107
million awarded that year by the state government.
But since then, funding for the program has plummeted to $12
million as a result of statewide economic problems. It may dwindle
even more if Gov. Gray Davis’ budget cuts for next year
become a reality.
Heisel said disadvantaged schools have the highest number of
uncredentialed teachers, the highest level of teacher mobility and
the highest level of teachers instructing outside their
discipline.
“The most critical resource for the quality of schools is
a good teaching staff,” she said, “For continued equity
among all children, these programs are absolutely
necessary.”
Partnership programs also joined other long standing UC-driven
outreach programs, such as MESA and Puente, which provide
pre-college skills to students at disadvantaged high schools
statewide.
Heisel said outreach programs have a real impact on school
cultures because they encourage college attendance.
“Almost half of underrepresented students as freshmen are
graduates of educational outreach programs,” she said.
“If the programs were cut, I can speculate ““ and I
expect ““ that (it) would be devastating.”
The regents repealed SP-1 in 2001, but Proposition 209 remains
part of the state constitution and supercedes the UC. While it does
not allow the university to target racial groups, it does not
prevent the UC from building diversity by attracting several
students from varying ethnic backgrounds.
“If what they’re doing is casting the net broadly;
that’s entirely appropriate,” said Stephen McCutcheon,
an attorney with the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation.
While opponents of racial considerations often wonder if the UC
secretly uses outreach and admissions policies to work around
Proposition 209, there have not been any formal challenges to the
university’s use of outreach.
“I think it’s gone relatively smoothly,”
Heisel said.