Ban on Race-Sensitive Admissions Continues to Cause Major Damage to Black Enrollments at State-Operated Law Schools in California

In 1997 the regents of the University of California enacted a ban on the consideration of race in admissions decisions for graduate and professional schools at state-operated educational institutions. Now nearly a decade later, the ban continues to have a major impact on black opportunities for legal education in California.

As late as 1994, 31 black first-year law students were enrolled at the Boalt Hall law school of the University of California at Berkeley. In 1997, the first year the ban on race-sensitive admissions went into effect, there was only one black first-year student.

Since that time, black first-year enrollments at Boalt Hall have rebounded to a high of 16 in 2003. But at this level black first-year law school enrollments are only about one half the level that prevailed in 1994. This past fall there were only nine black first-year students at Boalt Hall, a decrease of 44 percent from two years earlier.

At the UCLA law school, there is a similar story. In 1994, the year before the affirmative action admissions plan was announced, black enrollments at the UCLA law school reached an all-time high of 46. In 1997, when the ban took effect, there were only 10 black first-year law students at UCLA. By 1999 black enrollments reached a level not seen since the early 1960s. In 1999 only three black first-year law school students enrolled at UCLA.

From 1999 to 2003 significant progress was achieved. Black first-year students at the UCLA law school increased from three to 16. However, since 2003 black enrollments have once again started downward. In 2005 there were only nine black first-year students at the UCLA law school, less than one fifth the level that prevailed in 1994.

Copyright © 2006. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.