Content area
Full Text
Using a critical race theory framework, this study examines the ways in which race and racialized ideologies are manifested in high-stakes college admissions, the debate over affirmative action, and the college choice behavior of Black high school students. This study allows for the voices of Black high school students in California to describe their lived experiences with Proposition 209, suggesting a deeper meaning to affirmative action than simply the ways in which it affected institutional practices related to admissions decisions. The results indicate that, following the end of affirmative action in California, Black students had altered perceptions of where they were welcome and where they belonged in higher education. The results of this study can help colleges and universities to create, maintain, or improve a positive and welcoming climate for students of color in the wake of such policy changes.
In November, 1996, the State of California adopted Proposition 209, an amendment to the State Constitution that proposed to eliminate discriminatory practices in public employment, government contracting, and public institutions of education (Legislative Analyst's Office, 1996). Affirmative action programs, the bill's proponents argued, gave unfair preferences to underrepresented minorities and women, misrepresenting the spirit and intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Kennedy & Jeffrey, 1997; Civil Rights Act, 1964). While the legislation impacted all public agencies in the state, the consequences for public universities, and the University of California (UC) particularly, were immediate and dramatic.
Research has primarily focused on the extent to which Proposition 209 has impacted enrollment at California's most selective flagship institutions-University of California Berkeley (UCB) and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), which experienced an immediate and drastic decline in Black freshmen (Alien, Bonous-Hammarth, & Teranishi, 2001; Karabel, 1999). Following the enactment of Proposition 209, in the single year between 1997 and 1998, Black first-time freshmen enrollment decreased 43% at UCLA and 38% at UCB (UC Office of the President, 1999). Other studies have focused more specifically on how the admission processes of UC campuses without the use of race as a consideration has changed the admit rate of Blacks in the UC system (Espenshade & Chung, 2005; Liu, 2002; Ralph J. Bunche Center, 2006). The results of these studies suggested that the decline in Black enrollment was...