Not at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Of nearly 10,000 black students who graduated from Los Angeles County high schools this past June, just 1 percent will attend UCLA, according to NPR's Morning Edition.

Why? For many, the culprit is Proposition 209, the 1996 anti-affirmative-action bill backed by former UC Regent Ward Connerly, which made it illegal to use race-based preferences in admissions, employment and contracting throughout the state. When Connerly's term ended in January 2005, his message was clear: Don't bring back affirmative action, according to Black Issues in Higher Education.

UC may not be able to reinstate affirmative action, but the devastating decline in black enrollment has spawned discussion about how to revive the university's diversity within the boundaries of the law.

While UC has admitted more students of color since an initial drop after Connerly's Proposition 209, the disparities are concerning. This year, black enrollment at UCLA will be the lowest in more than three decades—a 57 percent decline since 1996. Last year, Latinos comprised 17 percent of UC admissions, marking only a minor gain since 1997, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. (See also: Ward Connerly's Anti-Affirmative-Action Legacy)

"We agree it's a crisis—absolutely," Yanina Montero, vice chancellor for student affairs at UCLA, told NPR.

In 2006, blacks accounted for just 2 percent of UCLA admissions. "We are not able, with these numbers, if they continue to decline, to have a critical mass of African-American students on campus to provide them with a positive experience, as well as maintaining the quality of the educational environment," said Montero.

On Wednesday, the UC Board of Regents approved a proposal to study the impact of Proposition 209 since its 1996 inception. The study will look at graduate and professional students as well as undergraduates, assess the effects on admissions, enrollment and campus climate and provide recommendations on how UC can enhance diversity within the law.

"African Americans are disappearing [from the UC student body] at an alarming and precipitous rate," Regent Eddie Island told UCSF Today, the daily news site for UC San Francisco. "If 209 brought about this result, then we ought to know it and the public ought to know it." The results will be reported to the Regents' Committee on Educational Policy by May 2007, five months too late to impact Michigan's vote on a similar proposal.

Connerly faults the school system, rather than his initiative, for the disparities. He aruges that black applicants are not as academically qualified as other students.

"It's much more convenient to blame 209, and to blame the university's
requirements, than to do the heavy lifting of getting our students prepared so
that they can compete," Connerly told NPR.

But how can students of color compete without equal opportunity? Connerly's relentless campaign has already opened the floodgates for a slew of anti-affirmative-action legislation in the name of civil rights. The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear two cases relative to public schools in Seattle, Wash., and Louisville, Ky. These public schools are two among many that have employed cluster districting and other tactics to achieve racial/ethnic balance in an effort to reap the benefits of integration and level the playing field. A May 2006 study by UC Davis and UCLA psychologists found that middle-school students felt safer and less lonely in diverse schools, a tout to the psychological benefits of diversity. In a survey of more than 70 sixth-grade classrooms in 11 public middle schools in Southern California urban communities, the researchers compared classrooms with lower and higher classroom diversity among whites, blacks, Latinos and Asians.

"The skills needed for young people to successfully negotiate today's increasingly global economy can best be developed through exposure to very diverse people, cultures and points of view," Sandra Graham of the UCLA Department of Education said in a release. "Diversity benefits everyone; in fact, it is critical in contemporary America and especially in states like California, where the population is changing dramatically."

In 2004, people of color comprised more than 70 percent of the Los Angeles County population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This year, they only were 22 percent of UC admissions.

According to the Los Angeles Times, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau believes this was not the outcome voters intended when they favored the 1996 California Civil Rights Initiative, which housed Proposition 209. In 1998, Connerly led a victorious campaign in Washington to pass Initiative 200, which was patterned after Proposition 209.

Will his third campaign be successful? This November, Michigan will vote on the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI), which would mirror the legislation already enacted in California and Washington. Civil-rights and advocacy groups such as BAMN, a coalition to defend affirmative action "By Any Means Necessary," have crusaded against Connerly's efforts, backed by bipartisan opposition to MCRI. And public sentiment appears to be shifting. According to a July 7–12 Free Press-Local 4 Michigan poll of 632 likely voters in the upcoming November election, 48 percent oppose the MCRI, 43 percent favor it and 9 percent are unsure. That 9 percent will make a critical difference come November. A campaign for awareness that leverages the lessons learned at UC will be key in securing those votes.