Nearly a year after Proposal 2 went into effect, the fight continues over what the statewide ban on affirmative action means for higher education.

A court battle simmers. College applications are being mined for information on who is applying. Private groups, which were not affected by the ban, are tailoring more scholarships to boost diversity.

Meanwhile, the University of Michigan Alumni Association is targeting more of its fund-raising efforts at scholarships for minorities and other underrepresented groups. And admissions officers at schools where race and ethnicity were once considered in the admissions process are continuing to rework the definition of diversity.

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If you have trouble picturing the American melting pot, look no farther than the food court of the Adele H. Stamp Student Union. Watching University of Maryland students of every color flock to the noisy cafeteria, observers can almost see the undergraduate statistics in their heads: one-third minority, ranked 16th in the country for diversity by The Princeton Review.

But looking down from an upstairs balcony, the crowd is more a patchwork quilt of ethnic cliques than a jumbled stew of diversity. White, black, Latino and Asian-American groups sit isolated from each other at small tables. The pattern is virtually unbroken.

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Aubrey Lewis was among the first to go, to nearby Oakland in 1977. “We left because of the housing situation,” says Lewis, 77. “And that was early. It hasn’t gotten much better.”

African-Americans are abandoning this famously progressive city at a rate that has alarmed San Francisco officials, who vow to stop the exodus and develop a strategy to win blacks back to the city. In June, Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed a task force to study how to reverse decades of policies — and neglect — that black leaders say have fueled the flight.

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Though increasing, the percentage of Yale minority faculty lags behind the student body. BY NOAH GENTELE

n 1876, after six years in residence at Yale, Edward Bouchet became the first African-American in the United States to earn a Ph.D. In 2002, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Bouchet’s graduation from Yale College, Dean Peter Salovey presented the first Edward Bouchet Leadership Award, a national award given to leaders in academia who h+ave played a critical role in diversifying higher education. Before presenting the first award, Salovey remarked that Bouchet was a man “who pushed his institution, and indeed this nation, to recognize that African-American and other minority scholars were vital to the production of knowledge in the academy.” Yet in 2002, only five African-American men and one African-American woman stood among the 365 tenured members of Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Today, the numbers have improved slightly, if not radically. Nine African-Americans hold tenured positions within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Altogether, though, only 41 tenured Yale College professors—10.5 percent of the tenured ranks of FAS—self-identify as members of an ethnic minority. That proportion stands in stark contrast to the undergraduate student body: For at least the past 15 years, almost half of Yale College’s entering class each year has been minority or international students.

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In the aftermath of the shootings in Virginia, many Korean and Asian American community leaders and student groups expressed sorrow and concern and the hope that the tragedy will not repeat the scapegoating Korean and Asian Americans saw after the 1992 Rodney King police beating.

A Possible Alternative If, As Many Expect, the Supreme Court Strikes Down More Conventional Race-Based Pupil Assignment
By VIKRAM DAVID AMAR

Supreme Court observers and school officials across the country are still awaiting the Court’s decisions in two pending cases - one from Seattle and one from Louisville — concerning the constitutionality of race-based student assignment in K-12 education. Meanwhile, they should pay close attention to another ruling last week - this one by a California state court - regarding pupil assignment.

The decision, American Civil Rights Foundation(ACLF) v. Berkeley Unified School District, upheld an innovative Berkeley public school voluntary integration program. If - as many (perhaps most) knowledgeable analysts expect– the Supreme Court strikes down the Seattle and/or Louisville plans, the Berkeley-style program may become the wave of the future.

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To retain minorities in science and engineering majors, culturally relevant ways to build self-confidence must be found and developed, according to preliminary results from a University of Wisconsin study.

The first-year results of the Sloan Project for Diversity in STEM Retention were presented as part of the “Wednesday Nite @ the Lab” series at the UW Biotechnology Center Wednesday. About 25 people attended the presentation of the three-year study.

The study examined the problem of low retention of African-American, Latino, Southeast Asian and American Indian students in the STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering and math. The study excluded Asians with backgrounds from countries outside Southeast Asia, such as China, Korea and Japan.

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The Sallie Mae Fund Offers Helpful Tips and $2.5 Million in Awards During
Scholarship Application Season

RESTON, Va., March 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Sallie Mae Fund
will once again provide $2.5 million in college scholarships to roughly
1,000 deserving students pursuing higher education this fall. Applications,
eligibility and deadline information are now available on
http://www.salliemaefund.org.
The Institute for Higher Education Policy estimates that there are
billions of dollars in college scholarships available each year. Awards can
range from a few hundred dollars to a full ride for all four years, and
best of all, they do not need to be repaid.

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It has been a decade since California passed Proposition 209, which eliminated racial preference in the public sector, and public universities are struggling to maintain a representative demographic, according to current enrollment rates.

In fact, Asian American enrollment in colleges nationwide is at its peak, recent reports reveal. Nationwide, Asian Americans make up less than 5 percent of the population, but in the nation’s top universities, they generally make up 10 to 30 percent of the student body, according to the reports.

Accordingly, the University of California and California State University systems are utilizing recruitment and academic preparation programs in order to draw in more minorities.

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