Radio Rahim

Another reason to occupy UCLA

In 2006, our university promised to repair its broken admissions system whose flaws had produced a historically low enrollment of black freshmen, only 96 students (2% of the incoming class of 4,800). 5 years after promising reform, our university has made almost no progress, enrolling only 209 black students in this year’s freshmen class (4.2%). To put this in perspective, UCLA enrolled 360 black freshmen in 1989, when the incoming class was roughly 1,000 students smaller.

If admissions rates between black and white students who qualify for admission to UCLA were equal, we would have 150 more black freshmen on campus today (roughly 7.4%). Their absence is a product of UCLA’s extra admissions criteria (giving extra weight to SAT and AP scores) that favor students from privileged backgrounds but predict almost nothing about a student’s performance in college.

Without significant external pressure, our administrators will not fix our university’s admissions problems on their own. They must be forced to reform. 

Occupy UCLA is a chance to make that happen.