By Kenneth Burch
 

In July of 1995, the UC Regents passed Special Policies one and two by a margin of fourteen to ten. At the time there was strong opposition from the President of the University, the Chancellors, the Academic Senate and the students too. These policies ended UC’s supposed form of “Reverse Discrimination” better known as Affirmative Action. A large portion of the debate was over the myth that Affirmative Action is really a form of systematic discrimination against white men. This myth is largely based on the old story of a white male not getting a job or not being admitted to a school because an unqualified woman or person of color took their spot.

Let’s begin by questioning some of the assumptions in this stereotype of Affirmative Action. Why is it every time this argument is made statistics are never used, only anecdotal evidence? In fact we know that women and people of color in this country receive smaller salaries and promotions then their male/white counter parts. While many gains have been made since the civil rights and women’s movements of the sixties, these have in large part been due to Affirmative Action. This is because Affirmative Action is not a policy of giving unfair advantages to women and people of color but rather UCSC defines “Affirmative action [as] a social policy of making good faith effort to remedy the effects of past or present discrimination in the workplace… it must be temporary, narrowly tailored to remedy problem areas where there is evidence of possible discrimination, and designed so as to not unduly infringe on the rights of people who are not the beneficiaries of affirmative action.”(http://www2.ucsc.edu/eeo-aa/ucsc-aa.htm)

So if Affirmative Action is supposed to place qualified people in positions previously closed to them, why do we always assume that women/persons of color who benefited from Affirmative Action are unqualified? In the examples used to defend the idea that Affirmative Action is reverse racism an “unqualified” person is always used, well how do we know they’re unqualified? If Affirmative Action meant unqualified people of color and women were being admitted to UC, one would expect our average GPA and graduation rates to increase, yet this has not been the case. Since the elimination of Affirmative Action, the average GPA of those who attend UC Berkeley has increased from 3.72 to 3.74, yet this has been at a cost of nearly a fifty percent drop in admissions of people of color. One might also expect to see an increase in the admission rate of Whites and a decrease in the admission rate of African Americans.  Well in 1997, the year before SP-1 and SP-2 were implemented, white’s were admitted to U.C. Santa Cruz at a rate of 84.5 percent, and in 1999 they were admitted at a rate of 77.5 percent. For African American’s the drop has been much more dramatic, in 1997 79.4 percent were admitted, and in 1999 61.2% of those who applied were admitted.

The question is what does all this mean? Is Affirmative Action really “Reverse Discrimination”? NO! Affirmative Action is a small form of compensation for the Systematic Oppression in this society. In fact SP-1 which ended Affirmative Action in admissions and prevented approximately 5,382 African Americans and Latinos from attending UC (analysis by Thomas Rivera Policy Institute) is a racist policy. Since the implementation of SP-2 and Proposition 209, which ended Affirmative Action in Hiring and Contracts has meant women have gone from being 35.8 percent of faculty hires to 25.1 percent. Therefore as students we must call upon the UC Regents to end their Racist and Sexist Policies SP-1 and SP-2 as soon as possible before we can no longer recover from the damage done.

Kenneth Burch
External Vice Chair
ucsarep@cats.ucsc.edu