UC MINORITY ENROLLMENT DOWN SHARPLY; NEW RULES AFFECT LAW, BUSINESS SCHOOL ADMISSIONS.

Byline: Ethan Bronner The New York Times

The number of minority students who enrolled at the law and business schools of the University of California fell dramatically this past fall as a result of new rules barring the consideration of race in admissions, according to systemwide data just released by the university.

The UC system's academic graduate programs and medical schools, on the other hand, showed little or no change.

The biggest drop was at the university's three law schools. From 1996 to 1997, the number of new African-American students dropped by 63 percent (from 43 to 16), American Indians by 60 percent (from 10 to four) and Latino students by 34 percent (from 89 to 59). At the same time, there was a 32 percent increase in the number of Asian-Americans (from 116 to 153) and a 27 percent increase in the number of whites (from 464 to 589).

At the University of California's five business schools, where a total of 861 new students began study, the picture was similar. Enrollments by Latino students fell by 54 percent, from 54 students to 25; African-American student enrollment dropped by 26 percent, from 27 to 20; and the number of American Indians stayed the same at three. Again, there was an increase in the number of Asian-American and white students by 9 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

Terry Lightfoot, a UC spokesman, said that because of the volume of applicants, law and business schools relied heavily on standardized test scores and grade point averages, where minority students have traditionally fared less well.

At the medical schools, the change was far less dramatic in part, he said, because medical schools traditionally have taken a broader view of admission and in part because they had already made some adjustment in 1996. So the total non-Asian minority student enrollment at the five medical schools fell from 73 in 1996 to 71 this past fall.

At the more than 600 graduate academic programs, African-American enrollment actually increased by 2 percent, from 213 to 218, with Latino enrollment down 9 percent (508 to 464) and American Indian enrollment down 2 percent (55 to 54).

In 1995, as sentiment against racial preferences and affirmative action gained ground around the country, the UC regents set new rules forbidding the use of race, gender and ethnicity in admissions. That ended a 17-year policy begun with the 1978 Supreme Court Bakke decision permitting the use of race as one factor for the sake of institutional diversity.

The 1996-97 application cycle was the first under the new rules for graduate and professional schools, so the large drop in numbers of minorities enrolled in September 1997 appears to be a direct result of the new rules.

The undergraduate admissions process was given an extra year before the new rules applied, meaning that applications now in the hands of admissions officers for the 1998-99 academic year will show how undergraduate minority admissions will have been affected.

Ellen Switkes, an assistant vice president of the university for academic advancement, said all campuses are looking at ways to reduce the impact of the new rules, including de-emphasizing standardized tests for both graduate and undergraduate admissions.

She said the law school at UC Berkeley had already announced that it would not take formal account of the variation in quality of the institutions from which undergraduates apply. In other words, a 3.5 grade-point average from Yale University will not be given any more formal weight than one from a state college.

Switkes said it was felt that the change would increase the chances of minority applicants gaining admission.