The Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) claims the UC Berkeley chancellor’s plan to increase the Hispanic student population is a “shameless proclamation of a Hispanic quota,” reports The Daily Californian.
UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ hopes to make the school a Hispanic-serving institution, or HSI, in the next 10 years, which entails that at least 25 percent of enrolled, full-time equivalent undergraduate students are Hispanic.
AACE sent a letter to Christ denouncing her plans, which read, “If anything, becoming a HSI should be a circumstantial result of merit-based admissions practices that examine each applicant’s individualized qualifications, not a preconceived means to an end of diversity.” The letter also claims that the plan violates the California state constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
However, according to campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof, UC Berkeley will not change admissions policy or practice to achieve this goal but instead plans to encourage admitted students to enroll at the school.
“The coalition’s claims are unfortunately based on the baseless and completely erroneous assumption that this University is planning to use racial quotas as part of its admission process,” Mogulof said in an email. “We have no quotas of any sort at present, and nor will we have quotas in the future.
“There is a major difference between changing admissions policy and practice—which we are not doing—and seeking to encourage admitted to students to enroll,” Mogulof added. “Given our belief in the benefits of diversity writ large, we will continue to seek appropriate, legal ways to facilitate the enrollment of already admitted students from under-represented groups who are clearly qualified and competent based on the standing criteria of our admissions policy.”
Director of AACE’s legal committee Raymond Wong said the plan “implies” racial quotas.
“It is alarming how some leaders of America’s top educational institutions take students’ equal educational rights so lightly, and don’t hesitate to trample upon their right to fair competition for best matched educational opportunities, regardless of what skin color they have, or where their ancestors came from,” AACE cofounder Swan Lee told The College Fix. “Racism begets racism, no matter what doublespeak, pretty excuses are used to cover up such deep race-based injustice and ethnic profiling.”
The College Fix reports that five other UC schools have already reached the distinction of HSI — UC Riverside, UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Barbara.
Wong noted that certain areas have higher proportions of certain races, and Lee added that she believes those UC campuses reached this distinction without racial quotas.
“If a school organically and naturally reached 25 percent Hispanic based on merit-based admissions and such combined socioeconomic approach, that’s a different thing,” Lee said.
Lee said that AACE will be keeping an eye on UC Berkeley’s admission rates and percentages from now on, hoping that UC Berkeley will “adhere to their promise” and not change admissions procedures.
“We believe that, as a public university, we have a responsibility to uphold the law; prepare our students for the diverse, multicultural world and workplaces they will inhabit; and, to the greatest extent possible, reflect and embody the demographics of the state we serve,” wrote Mogulof.
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