The Los Angeles Times ran a front page article on June 3rd titled "A Startling Statistic at UCLA" which depicts the abysmal state of African American admissions at the University of California Los Angeles. As a graduate of UCLA's Anderson School of Management, a former member of the Anderson School's Alumni Board and Executive Committee, the former Executive Vice President of one of the nation's leading college access initiatives for low income students, and now as the President of the Los Angles Urban League, the issue of UCLA's declining African American enrollment is one that I have been personally involved with for many years.
Importantly, these atrocious trends are not only occurring at the undergraduate level, but also at the graduate level, where representation of African Americans has now fallen to below 3% in many of the major graduate programs. African American enrollment in many of UCLA's graduate school programs has now dwindled to single digits.
What is happening to our great university and to our state - both of which formerly were great beacons in their aggressive pursuit of diversity? Today, the passion for uplifting communities through education has seemingly been replaced by a complacency and acceptance of the status quo. And if these trends continue, they spell disaster both for our great city and our once progressive state.
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Learn more about the Urban League's efforts at Crenshaw High School.
