The University of California – Los Angeles has a noted diversity program, which provides diversity-related resources for undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, staff and alumni.

Despite these best efforts, a new video reveals that black students on campus aren’t satisfied…and blame lack of race-based admission policies.

The number of NCAA championships UCLA has won exceeds the number of current male black freshman enrolled at the school.

Just 3.3% of UCLA’s 19,838 male students are black. And the odds are stacked against them. Of the 48 male black freshmen who enrolled at the school last fall, 74%— 35 students — are expected to graduate, confirmed Ricardo Vázquez, assistant director of media relations for UCLA.

Twelve UCLA students appearing in a now-viral YouTube video titled “The Black Bruins [The Spoken Word]” say that is an “unacceptable result for an institution that calls itself “one of the world’s most ethnically and culturally diverse communities.”

“When every black student in class feels like Rosa Parks on the bus,” “when the university refuses to come to our defense,” when “our faces are just used to cover up from the public what’s really inside,” it’s clear that UCLA’s administration has failed its black community, the students say in the video.

The 12 students appearing in the video, led by UCLA junior Sy Stokes, have galvanized affirmative-action proponents and reignited the question of how to increase diversity in a state that has barred considering race and ethnicity in admissions.

University officials insist that they share, not ignore, such frustrations. They, too, want to bolster African-American enrollment and retention — which they said remains “modest and slow.”

“We certainly recognize that the low numbers of African Americans and other underrepresented students on campus does lead to a sense of isolation and invisibility,” Janina Montero, vice chancellor for student affairs at UCLA, said in a statement responding to Stokes’ video.

One comment on the video sums up the proper response: The lack of minorities and underprivileged people in universities is not a problem specific to only UCLA. We can’t realistically expect UCLA to admit students purely based on skin color to fulfill some notion of equality. What’s the point of admitting students to UCLA if they don’t meet the minimum qualifications?


 
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