Diversity

The Los Angeles Urban League is proud to support America I Am, an outstanding exhibition presented by our good friend Tavis Smiley and proudly sponsored by Walmart.

Tavis is offering a $1 discount coupon to customers, friends and supporters of the Los Angeles Urban League. The exhibit is now open at the California African American Museum and the discount coupon valid thru March 31. Please support America I Am.

Click here and print the coupon to get $1 off admission to America I Am.

Los Angeles Urban League CEO Blair Taylor spoke at a news conference condemning the racial violence against Chanisse Davy, an African American woman living in Duarte, calling it "simply unacceptable."

Responding to the dismal numbers of African Americans enrolling at UCLA for the freshman class for Fall 2006 – only 96 students, the lowest number since the 1970's - the Alliance for Equal Opportunity in Education (AEOE), a historic collaboration between community-based organizations, students, alumni, faculty, support staff, and city and state representatives, meet weekly for the past year in order to apply pressure to UCLA and the UC Regents.

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 Today, the passion for uplifting communities through education has seemingly been replaced by a complacency and acceptance of the status quo.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.