UC President Postpones Ban on Preferences

The ban on the use of race and gender as factors in admissions decisions at the University of California will be postponed for one year, until 1998, under a change announced by the UC president’s office Tuesday.

UC officials called the change a “reinterpretation” of the ban on affirmative action in admissions that was approved by the Board of Regents in July and was slated to take effect Jan. 1, 1997.

That policy, according to a memo circulated to administrators throughout the nine-campus system, “will affect applicants to the fall 1998 term, not the applicants to the fall 1997, as previously assumed.”

But Regent Ward Connerly, who sponsored the affirmative action ban, said Tuesday that he will accept no delay in implementation of the policy and vowed to convene a special meeting of the regents if UC officials persist in efforts to delay.

“We’ve got some regents, including this one, who are furious,” he said. “I hope it’s a misunderstanding. . . . They have ample time from Jan. 1 of 1997 to get their act together for the fall of 1997. Under no circumstances, I repeat under no circumstances, are we agreeing to the fall of 1998.”

Gov. Pete Wilson sits on the Board of Regents and has been central to the effort to dismantle race- and gender-based preferences. On Tuesday, a Wilson administration source accused UC of intentionally dragging its feet.

“The bottom line is the UC administration is doing everything they can to try not to implement this policy. They seek to subvert [it],” the source said.

UC officials, including President Richard Atkinson, insist that the new timetable is not a change in the policy approved by the regents--just a more realistic timetable.

According to an explanation distributed Tuesday by Assistant Vice President Dennis Galligani, the original schedule did not leave sufficient time to prepare new application and informational materials, among other things, to replace those that list race and gender among admission criteria.

Students applying for the 1997-98 school year begin collecting those materials this spring to meet a November application deadline.

“Logistically, we’ve discovered that just can’t be accomplished,” said Terry Colvin, a UC spokesman.

But Connerly dismissed those concerns. “There is some lead time involved” to prepare for the class that will enter in fall 1997, he acknowledged. But “you can print a whole encyclopedia set in 18 months.”

On Tuesday, some faculty members and students were cheering the policy change, and crediting it to their efforts to persuade the regents to drop or delay the ban on affirmative action. That ban has been opposed by the chancellors and faculty leaders at all nine UC campuses.

“This is more than a symbolic victory. It’s a sign that six months of organizing . . . has paid off,” said Larry Wallack, a UC Berkeley professor and one of the organizers of a broad-based faculty campaign to overturn the regents’ action. “We’ve been up against a brick wall. We now have an opening.”

At last Thursday’s regents meeting, faculty mounted their biggest offensive yet, appealing for two hours to the board to rescind its ban on race and gender as criteria in UC admissions, hiring and contracting. But the board postponed indefinitely consideration of that proposal, and did not vote on another offered--and then withdrawn--that would have delayed implementation for one year.

“Obviously, it seems like this is an appeasement for the faculty and for the students,” said Kimi Lee, executive director of the UC Student Assn., who suggested that the change came in response to the emotional pleas made by students and faculty at that meeting.

“Today, all of a sudden, it’s like, ‘By the way, we just reinterpreted it,’ ” Lee said. “It’s good for us in that we have another year to work on this and to fight it. But it’s all very interesting that it’s coming out now.”

If the change stands, it will mean one additional class of UC undergraduates will be admitted under a system that assembles a freshman class by considering race and gender, among many other factors.

Admissions officials said the abrupt announcement caught them off guard. For months, they have been working quickly to draft admissions policies and guidelines that incorporate the regents’ new policy. It remained unclear Tuesday how the one-year delay would affect those efforts.

As recently as last month, Atkinson sent a letter to UC’s nine chancellors reminding them of the need to incorporate the regents’ new guidelines in admitting the fall 1997 class.

“We have up until now been working toward the understanding that [the regents’ resolution] would take effect fall of 1997,” said Pamela Burnett, associate director of admissions and relations with schools at UC Berkeley. “We were very surprised, and we’re still waiting for more information.”

Rae Lee Siporin, UCLA’s director of undergraduate admissions, had a similar reaction: “I literally found out late Friday.”

But Siporin said she was glad for the change. “It gives us a little breathing space to make sure that we’re doing things the best way we can possibly do them,” she said.

In Atkinson’s letter to the chancellors Friday, he said the new timetable had been “discussed with members of the Board of Regents.”

Colvin, the UC spokesman, said Atkinson “did not go to a quorum of the board and seek their advice on this. He did inform selected regents last week.”

And board Chairman Clair W. Burgener said that although he had not talked to Atkinson personally, he was not opposed to the change.

“I knew there was a problem. Apparently, it’s a timing problem of which we may have been unaware,” Burgener said. Told of the new timetable, Burgener said, “I have no objection to that.”

But Connerly said that while he was consulted by the president, he did not approve a yearlong delay. “I hope it’s a misunderstanding,” he said. “But if it isn’t corrected soon, we will call a special meeting of the board to make it abundantly clear that [the policy] applies for the fall of 1997.”