incoming freshman dropped dramatically. by more than half at those school. across the uc system, black and latino enrollment fell sharply over the next year without affirmative action. in the decades to follow, the use eastham silt took a progressive approach to improve those numbers to mid 90s level. that black student enrollment still lags at uc berkeley and ucla only recently returned to mid 90s levels. this decision is made in 1996, fast forward to 2023, nearly three decades later to say the numbers have finally improved with the exception of berkeley. imagine what this is going to look like on a national level. you have to think about the legacy, the impact across racial groups and why there are disparities decade after decade despite so many policies. it could easily walk into a classroom and feel like i m someone who does not belong here. that is not the truth, right? neil mcclinton graduated from ucla two years ago and now works in black student outreach. without such o
these things. i want to circle back to an important point president roth said. we have to look at this decision, which we knew was coming, it s a slow train coming into the station, but in the context of k through 12 education. we re focusing a lot, obviously, on the universities and the decision that affects us in upper-level education, but it s the inequity in the k through 12 situation we really must address. that leads us to these conversations when we re trying to build a really diverse classroom. that s diversity in all senses of the word. whether it is race, ethnicity, sexuality, geography, class, you name it. president roth, i m wondering if in preparing for this decision coming out, you all looked at the experience of the uc system or university of michigan which, you know, went through this sort of, you know, negating of affirmative action a while ago and really struggled with it. yes, we did. we looked closely at those cases
drop in minority admissions. keep in mind, these are public universities that all families, all communities in the state of california pay into, and then you saw this drastic reduction in access from minority families, not just black families, but latino families, and then here on harvard s campus, just this spring, the upcoming class, the kids who found out this spring they were going to be future harvard students this coming fall. we saw a drop in admissions of black, latino, native american, and native hawaiian students, and that is before this decision came out. these are the things that are fueling students concerns right now. when you talk to kids, you know, it s conflicting, right? they want to imagine that these work arounds might still work. the uc system tried those work arounds as well, and they re still struggling every year to get minority enrollment back up. what they re also seeing is not just that those students are being rejected but lower numbers of minorities are ev