Freshman Arian White, an African American who is currently competing with 100 other students for election into one of twenty seats on the student senate, says his story is testimony to the good affirmative action can do.
"I had a 3.2 GPA and scored 1160 on the SAT," said the self-described beneficiary of affirmative action. "Now I have a 3.7 GPA. What really matters is not what you do before you get here, but what you do when you get here.... Without affirmative action, I want to say [UC is] missing out on students who would add to the prestige of this university."
"I believe this will continue to be an outstanding university," Berdahl said. "We will not become homogeneous. But I do believe diversity is important. To the extent that this leaves us less diverse, I think it diminishes us."
Freshman Admits to UC-Berkeley (Fall 1997 and Fall 1998)
Fall Fall Number PercentageCOPYRIGHT 1998 Cox, Matthews & Associates
Ethnicity 1997 1998 Change Change
African American 598 255 -343 -56.6
Native american 77 47 -30 -37.9
Chicano 1,143 619 -524 -44.9
Latino 268 233 -35 -11.6
Asian 3,866 3,861 -5 +1.6
White 3,598 3,508 -90 -0.8
International 297 273 -24
Not given 627 1,586 959 157.3
Total 10,707 10,509 -198
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