State: Black UF freshmen numbers plummet

GAINESVILLE -- The freshman class at the University of Florida -- the first enrolled under Gov. Jeb Bush's order banning the use of racial preferences -- will be its whitest in years.

UF officials are expecting African-American students to make up 6 to 7 percent of this year's freshman enrollment. That's down from almost 12 percent last year, when the university was still factoring race into many of its admissions decisions.

UF provost David Colburn says the decline would have been even worse if UF hadn't overhauled its application process, partnered with urban high schools and ramped up its minority recruitment efforts. All were elements required by the governor's order.

"But this is disappointing," says Colburn, UF's chief academic officer. He says the university must become a more inviting place to African-Americans.

From the time Bush announced his "One Florida" plan in November 1999, critics have been waiting for a breakdown of this freshman class -- the first here in decades to be admitted without consideration of race.

Many who opposed the governor's ban predicted minority enrollment would fall off a cliff. And not just at UF, they said, but in the university system as a whole.

They were wrong about the system: So far, at least, minority enrollment at the state's 10 other universities appears to be holding up well.

Most of the university presidents told Bush last week that they expect black enrollment at their schools to be either flat or slightly up this year. The same, apparently, is true for Hispanics.

But experts have always maintained that the biggest test of One Florida would be its impact on UF -- the state's toughest school to get into and, for most of its history, one of the least diverse.

In every other state where racial preferences were eliminated, the elite schools suffered the quickest and sharpest declines in minority enrollment. It happened in California, Texas and Washington during the 1990s.

Now it's happening at UF. And though the initial decline is less severe than what happened at UCLA or the University of Texas, it still angers many black students here.

They worry about becoming even more isolated.

"I can't see it getting any better with even less of us here," says Stella DaCruz, an African-American majoring in telecommunications.

"You're shutting out other cultures and other perspectives," says Vinson Harris, a black freshman.

Adora Obi Nweze, president of the Florida chapter of the NAACP, says the declining numbers at UF should concern all Floridians.

"At least before One Florida, there was some kind of remedy available," she says. "It's not as if Jeb Bush is going to take any responsibility."

The governor, who is running for re-election, has little patience for attacks on One Florida. He says media reports are misrepresenting its impact. He says political opponents are playing fast and loose with the truth.

Two of his loudest critics, Democratic state Sen. Kendrick Meek and former state Rep. Tony Hill, sent out a letter last month in which they declared One Florida a "failed initiative."

They urged Bush to abandon the policy, saying it would "only serve to deepen the divide of opportunity for minorities as time goes on."

Bush's response was characteristically blunt:

"Two years ago, the critics were saying that minority enrollment would plummet. Now the complaint appears to be that minority enrollment has not skyrocketed.

"I wonder what the complaint will be tomorrow."

An unwelcoming place

While Bush's ban clearly fueled the drop in black enrollment at UF, both Colburn and UF President Charles Young say there are other reasons their institution is struggling.

The most critical, they say, is the perception shared by many black students and their parents that UF can be an elitist and unwelcoming place.

"We need to improve the environment on this campus," says Colburn, echoing sentiments expressed by dozens of black students who were surveyed at UF last year.

Administrators concluded those students share a "general sense of not being welcome" at the university.

Young said that perception is hurting UF's ability to compete for the relatively small pool of African-American students who meet the university's high admission standards.

The average SAT score for UF freshmen this year is almost 1,300. That's on a par with some Ivy League schools. The average GPA for freshmen is a perfect 4.0.

"The minority students that we can accept are also being recruited by Harvard, Princeton and the University of California," Young says. "That's tough competition."

It doesn't help that only about 3 percent of UF's faculty is African-American. Or that black enrollment overall is barely 6 percent, well below the number Colburn says is needed to make black students feel comfortable.

Suzette Maylor says it is not at all uncommon for her to be one of only a handful of black students in classes with 200 people or more.

"It can become a bit intimidating," says Maylor, a finance major and vice president of the UF student body. "I don't see how an elite university like this can be happy with numbers this low."

The numbers would have been even lower if the university had not made extensive use of racial preferences during the last several years.

Since 1997, the percentage of black freshmen enrolled at UF has climbed from 8.1 percent to 11.7 percent. Officials say they were particularly aggressive in bringing African-American students in last year because they knew it would be the last in which race could be considered.

That surge is making this year's drop seem even more dramatic. If UF's estimates are correct, the university will have fewer than 450 black freshmen on campus this fall. That's down from about 819 last year.

For a time, Colburn feared an even greater drop.

"The thing I draw some heart from is we didn't drop back to 5 or even 4 percent," says Colburn, a noted historian and the author of several books on civil rights.

He says that would have set the university back 20 years.

'How much for an African-American?'

Even with One Florida fully implemented, preferences remain a key factor in determining who gets into Florida schools.

Talented athletes get preferential treatment. So do the children of alumni and students from poor socioeconomic backgrounds.

Bush says these are all acceptable factors to consider in university admissions.

What Bush doesn't find acceptable is a system that gives an applicant special treatment based solely on race or ethnicity. He says those who do support a quota system.

"How much is a Hispanic worth?" Bush asked in his recent letter to Meek and Hill, the state lawmakers who urged him to drop One Florida. "10 points? 5? How much for an African-American?"

But the governor says he also had pragmatic reasons for ending racial preferences. He is convinced the practice was doomed anyway, either via the courts or Florida voters.

Even critics acknowledge his ban ended California businessman Ward Connerly's drive to pass a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited all affirmative action programs in Florida.

And UF officials say it gave them enough time to avoid the kind of minority meltdown experienced in other states after racial preferences were banned.

The university built partnerships with high schools in Miami and Jacksonville. It worked harder to target high-achieving black students and their parents.

Most importantly, it made major changes to its admissions criteria.

A high SAT score, for example, now counts no more toward admission at UF than two years of attendance at a high school in a low-income neighborhood.

It still helps to be in the National Honor Society, but it helps more to have grown up in a high-crime neighborhood or to have overcome poverty or family dysfunction.

Some critics, including Connerly, have called such changes a subterfuge. They say the new standards are merely proxies for race.

While acknowledging a correlation, UF officials insist the new criteria are a legal and, they hope, effective way to build a diverse student body.

Colburn says the most important job for UF is to earn the trust of African-Americans in Florida.

"We were a segregated institution for a long time. And for a long time after that we were an almost lily-white institution," he says.

"I don't blame black parents for wanting us to prove it. We need to show them that our words have meaning."

-- Correspondent Joe Black contributed to this report.

Recent coverage

Colleges feel pinch of tight budget (June 14, 2001)

UF entry rules adapt to seek out diversity (January 28, 2001)

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