How Proposition 209 Has Impacted Business School Education for African Americans in California

Readers of JBHE are well aware of the effect of Proposition 209 on black enrollments at the most selective undergraduate campuses of the University of California. This public referendum, enacted in 1996, bans the consideration of race in admissions and hiring decisions at all state-operated colleges and universities in California.

But the bans on race-sensitive admissions has had an even greater impact on black enrollments at business schools in the state. JBHE research shows that at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley there were only two blacks among the 491 entering students in 2005. They made up only 0.4 percent of the first-year class. At the business school at the University of California at Los Angeles there were only six black students among the 330-member entering class.

The impact of Proposition 209 is also felt at the faculty level at state-run business schools in California. There are no blacks whatsoever among the 75 faculty members at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.