Interview with UC Berkeley Admissions Head on Affirmative Action

[Anonymous]

The Supreme Court in a previous ruling said they were ruling to allow affirmative action with a 25 year timeline. The minority said this is not in the Constitution or law and made no sense. This ruling was about 17 years ago.
It is pretty clear that colleges will not get rid of these policies on their own within 8 years, and will continue to resist any rulings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone even thought to look past the language and actually look at the stats? 3.4% AA, 14% Hispanic. That's a ridiculously low percentage of both given their percentages both in the country and especially the state for Hispanics. Why does anyone imagine that affirmative action has some major impact at Berkeley with such numbers?

The U.S. is about 19% Hispanic. Not a huge difference between that and 14%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone even thought to look past the language and actually look at the stats? 3.4% AA, 14% Hispanic. That's a ridiculously low percentage of both given their percentages both in the country and especially the state for Hispanics. Why does anyone imagine that affirmative action has some major impact at Berkeley with such numbers?

The U.S. is about 19% Hispanic. Not a huge difference between that and 14%.

Yes, but Hispanics make up 39% of the population of California. Cal is a state school that is supposed to be drawing students from the state population….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone even thought to look past the language and actually look at the stats? 3.4% AA, 14% Hispanic. That's a ridiculously low percentage of both given their percentages both in the country and especially the state for Hispanics. Why does anyone imagine that affirmative action has some major impact at Berkeley with such numbers?

The U.S. is about 19% Hispanic. Not a huge difference between that and 14%.

Yes, but Hispanics make up 39% of the population of California. Cal is a state school that is supposed to be drawing students from the state population….

What percentage are qualified to attend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone even thought to look past the language and actually look at the stats? 3.4% AA, 14% Hispanic. That's a ridiculously low percentage of both given their percentages both in the country and especially the state for Hispanics. Why does anyone imagine that affirmative action has some major impact at Berkeley with such numbers?

The U.S. is about 19% Hispanic. Not a huge difference between that and 14%.

Yes, but Hispanics make up 39% of the population of California. Cal is a state school that is supposed to be drawing students from the state population….

What percentage are qualified to attend?

Negative five percent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone even thought to look past the language and actually look at the stats? 3.4% AA, 14% Hispanic. That's a ridiculously low percentage of both given their percentages both in the country and especially the state for Hispanics. Why does anyone imagine that affirmative action has some major impact at Berkeley with such numbers?

Aggrieved whites ( and increasingly Asians) don't look at stats like this: it goes against the URM scapegoating narrative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone even thought to look past the language and actually look at the stats? 3.4% AA, 14% Hispanic. That's a ridiculously low percentage of both given their percentages both in the country and especially the state for Hispanics. Why does anyone imagine that affirmative action has some major impact at Berkeley with such numbers?

What’s the percentages of AA and Hispanic kids qualified to go to Berkeley?

[Anonymous]

All of the UC’s want to be declared Hispanic Serving Institutes to qualify for federal funds. A university must be 25% Latino to be an HSI.
UC Berkeley — emerging HSI
UC Davis — designation pending
UC Irvine — designated HSI
UCLA — emerging HSI
UC Merced — designated HSI
UC Riverside — designated HSI
UC San Diego — emerging HSI
UC Santa Barbara — designated HSI
UC Santa Cruz — designated HSI

How can a university not look at race and be a Hispanic Serving Institute? I don’t get it.

[Anonymous]

What is more interesting to me is that the roles that this UCB Dean of Admissions had before UCB were all DEI roles for the prior 7-8 years. Running DEI initiatives.

His PhD at UCB is actually on Equity and Democracy it seems

Organizations are just people. And the people drive thousands of minute decisions and stances that drive an agenda. In this case, it’s pretty interesting to see what the background of this Dean is. Has not in fact run an undergrad admissions office but has run DEI initiatives at three prior schools.

So no one should be surprised that he and his AOs are peering into essays to see race - despite the law.

The person who posted actually black student percent at UCB is missing the point. It might be too high. It might in fact be too low. The point is that the AOs should not be reading into essays or zip code of applicant to guess race. And it’s pretty implicit in the interview that they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of the UC’s want to be declared Hispanic Serving Institutes to qualify for federal funds. A university must be 25% Latino to be an HSI.
UC Berkeley — emerging HSI
UC Davis — designation pending
UC Irvine — designated HSI
UCLA — emerging HSI
UC Merced — designated HSI
UC Riverside — designated HSI
UC San Diego — emerging HSI
UC Santa Barbara — designated HSI
UC Santa Cruz — designated HSI

How can a university not look at race and be a Hispanic Serving Institute? I don’t get it.

Interesting that UCB and UCLA are not there. They are the most selective. Not sure what to make of that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone even thought to look past the language and actually look at the stats? 3.4% AA, 14% Hispanic. That's a ridiculously low percentage of both given their percentages both in the country and especially the state for Hispanics. Why does anyone imagine that affirmative action has some major impact at Berkeley with such numbers?

The U.S. is about 19% Hispanic. Not a huge difference between that and 14%.

Yes, but Hispanics make up 39% of the population of California. Cal is a state school that is supposed to be drawing students from the state population….

But is it? Is a public university supposed to match the ethnic/racial demographics of a state? Because Indian Americans, for example, represent a relatively small percent of Californians, but a larger percent on college campuses because of their academic qualifications. Should they be limited? Some people think so, but I and other Californians voted against affirmative action when it was put before us. I think the UC system should honor the people’s vote as they try to patch their incoming classes together. But i know they won’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very interesting listen
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/segments/supreme-court-affirmative

What I was struck by was the linguistic tricks (for lack of a better word) that UC Berkeley admissions head used to say they don’t look at race as a factor (as public California schools can’t) but then he basically says they do use race by peering into the application. Lots of use of terms of equity and diversity. I’m for diversity but as we know, equity is a loaded word that doesn’t mean equality.

It’s a fascinating listen regardless of your views

Also found fascinating that this head of admissions at Berkeley who was previously at Stanford admissions was unaware of California public university prohibition on affirmative action in admissions prior to joining Cal. I’m mean how the heck does that happen?

He also does say how much they rely on APs in this interview.

Any of your DMV private parents at schools without AP courses holding out hope of UCB later this month, listen to this and lower your expectations by several notches. It’s probably not happening. Plus the bias against OOS given recent state mandates to increase in state and in state community college transfer ins.

It sounds like they’ve opened the door to lawsuits

Lawsuits are likely to fail. The Supreme Court is pretty likely to declare affirmative action unlawful, colleges will engage in whatever shenanigans they need to continue their practice of soft racial quotas, and the lower federal courts will engage in a campaign of massive resistance to the Supreme Court’s ruling and lawsuits will seldom succeed, just as with gun control cases. Affirmative action advocates think it is too important to allow a little thing like the law to stand in the way.

This is exactly what will happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone even thought to look past the language and actually look at the stats? 3.4% AA, 14% Hispanic. That's a ridiculously low percentage of both given their percentages both in the country and especially the state for Hispanics. Why does anyone imagine that affirmative action has some major impact at Berkeley with such numbers?

The U.S. is about 19% Hispanic. Not a huge difference between that and 14%.

Yes, but Hispanics make up 39% of the population of California. Cal is a state school that is supposed to be drawing students from the state population….

But is it? Is a public university supposed to match the ethnic/racial demographics of a state? Because Indian Americans, for example, represent a relatively small percent of Californians, but a larger percent on college campuses because of their academic qualifications. Should they be limited? Some people think so, but I and other Californians voted against affirmative action when it was put before us. I think the UC system should honor the people’s vote as they try to patch their incoming classes together. But i know they won’t.

It’s this newfangled logic of DEI. Everything (at least selectively) has to be proportionate. That is “equity.” Just read Kendi. This is why whites love it. A rubric to discriminate against Asians who outperform them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone even thought to look past the language and actually look at the stats? 3.4% AA, 14% Hispanic. That's a ridiculously low percentage of both given their percentages both in the country and especially the state for Hispanics. Why does anyone imagine that affirmative action has some major impact at Berkeley with such numbers?

The U.S. is about 19% Hispanic. Not a huge difference between that and 14%.

Yes, but Hispanics make up 39% of the population of California. Cal is a state school that is supposed to be drawing students from the state population….

Ding ding ding. Compare the percentage of white students at elite schools which discriminate by race and other non-academic factors with the one elite school that doesn't (Caltech) and you'll see exactly why the elites are pushing this. I bet if you look at the class by income, the disparities would grow even greater
But is it? Is a public university supposed to match the ethnic/racial demographics of a state? Because Indian Americans, for example, represent a relatively small percent of Californians, but a larger percent on college campuses because of their academic qualifications. Should they be limited? Some people think so, but I and other Californians voted against affirmative action when it was put before us. I think the UC system should honor the people’s vote as they try to patch their incoming classes together. But i know they won’t.

It’s this newfangled logic of DEI. Everything (at least selectively) has to be proportionate. That is “equity.” Just read Kendi. This is why whites love it. A rubric to discriminate against Asians who outperform them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone even thought to look past the language and actually look at the stats? 3.4% AA, 14% Hispanic. That's a ridiculously low percentage of both given their percentages both in the country and especially the state for Hispanics. Why does anyone imagine that affirmative action has some major impact at Berkeley with such numbers?

.exactly!