Approximately two dozen affirmative action supporters and high school students gathered on Sproul Plaza Friday afternoon to raise awareness about minority student enrollment in a press conference organized by activist group BAMN.
BAMN leaders, UC Berkeley students and high school seniors spoke against Proposition 209, which prohibits state institutions, including the UC, from considering race, sex or ethnicity in employment or enrollment, according to BAMN attorney Ronald Cruz.
“There are so many people like me, minorities, Latinos, African Americans who (have been) fighting the odds their whole life,” said Bianca Woodward, a high school senior who is currently appealing her rejection from the university. “Denying them admission to a school like UC Berkeley is to deny themselves and the community and school the possibility to foster a new generation of leaders who more accurately represent the community.”
Since Prop. 209 passed in 1996, Cruz claims that there has been a significant decrease in Latino, black and Native American students being admitted to UC Berkeley. Yvette Felarca, a BAMN Northern California coordinator, said she hopes that their efforts will help change the admission process for the University of California and that the university will double their admission numbers for underrepresented minority students.
California freshman applicants admitted to UC Berkeley for fall 2013 have a nearly identical ethnic composition to those of previous years, even as campus groups and the university continue to push for greater minority inclusion.
While African Americans, Hispanic/Latino and American Indian constituted 32.1 percent of California residents applying to UC Berkeley, they make up 22 percent of admitted students, according to data released by the UC Office of the President last week. Last year, the same groups made up 30.9 percent of the resident applicant pool and saw comparable admissions numbers.
This is the second year that BAMN has organized to support affirmative action rights. According to Felarca, the organization helped admit 15 minority students to the UC after they appealed.
“(This demonstration) shows the power of the movement,” said high school senior Sidney Adebayo, who is appealing his rejection to the university. “When the admission office makes their decision on all the many thousands of students, they make it based on a piece of paper, but they really don’t know the student very well. They don’t even know his personality (or) what he’s accomplished.”
Contact Jennie Yoon at jyoon@dailycal.org.
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