"A repeal of SP-1 is an important symbolic gesture telling Los Angeles and the state of California that we welcome minorities.” Fong is the UC Student Regent for the 2000-2001 school year and a graduate student in public policy at UCLA. For more information about the UC Regents visit www.ucop.edu. E-mail him at Justin.Fong@ucop.edu.
On Sunday, The Bruin’s Editorial Board interviewed UC
Student Regent Justin Fong, a graduate student in public policy.
The following are excerpts from that interview.
Earlier this year, you said that the most difficult part of being a student regent was to identify within a year some of the issues that you could actually push forward and change, and that the most rewarding part was hopefully getting something done. What are some of the issues that you have tried to push for this year? This has been an exciting year for the university. From my perspective, the big issues this year were the move toward increasing graduate student support and increasing funding from the state for the sciences and technology. There has also been a general increase in friendliness toward students by the university, as seen in the increase of student services and other policies.
Do you really think this is friendliness toward students? Where do you think this friendliness comes in? I think in the past there’s been a huge animosity toward students. But for the first time, we’ve seen the UC budget request a student services allocation of about $3 million. This was the result of a lot of work not only by the university, but also by the UC Student Association and student advocates. This is really a groundbreaking thing that happened – it’s not something that happened in the past.
“The problem with the SAT is that it’s not based on ... knowledge anywhere except the knowledge found in private test prep programs.” Funding Gov. Davis, in his budget proposal, included $3 million for student retention, which fell short of the $6 million requested. Yet, he included $33 million for four California Institutes for Science and Innovation, something the UC didn’t ask for. Do you think that the university and the regents’ priorities are in the right place?
The university has a huge number of roles to fill, one of which is supporting the state of California in scientific and technological research. Regardless of whether or not the governor allocates funds for student services, there is money within the UC system. We shouldn’t just look to the governor, we should reorganize our priorities within our own institution. How much money do we spend on buildings and athletics vs. student services?
As a regent, what are you doing in terms of that? I am wary of the path the university is going down. We’re focusing too much on industry-related disciplines and we’re overlooking our responsibility to other disciplines on the campuses. Just because IBM won’t come in and sponsor a comparative literature course doesn’t mean that money shouldn’t come in and go to that department. I think that the university should act as a gateway and if people want to donate money, the university should be able to decide where to spend it – it shouldn’t come tied to any projects or industry interests. That’s not something that’s very attractive to donors outside the university, but it’s something that we have the responsibility to do.
Affirmative Action The number of minorities at the UC has dropped in the past three years since the passage of SP-1, which ended the use of affirmative action in admissions. Yet last year, Student Regent Michelle Pannor said that repealing SP-1 would be a purely symbolic gesture and would be without any weight because of Proposition 209. Do you think that repealing SP-1 would really do much given that Proposition 209 bans the use of affirmative action in the state of California? What good would repealing SP-1 do? First, we should not undersell symbolism. UCLA itself is a huge symbol and we like to portray ourselves that way. A repeal of SP-1 is an important symbolic gesture telling Los Angeles and the state of California that we welcome minorities. We’re losing some of the brightest minorities to other universities because they don’t want to come here. So sending out a symbol that we welcome them is important.
“There’s no doubt that the UC can be used as a political tool, and we have to be wary of abuses of power.”
Secondly, the repeal of SP-1 is more than symbolic; there are
identifiable policy changes. Section 5 of SP-1 states that not less
than 50 and not more than 75 percent of applicants to the UC will
be admitted based on academic merit alone. That means those
students don’t get consideration for their essays, leadership
experiences, background, socio-economic hardship or cultural
diversity. If I’m going to get denied from UCLA, I want to
get denied based on the entire package, not just my GPA and SAT. So
there is a very real policy change that comes with repealing
SP-1.
Some of the regents view this issue differently. Though they may have voted against SP-1 in the past, voting to repeal it may be a different thing. How are you going to convince these regents to repeal SP-1? I can’t think of a good reason not to repeal SP-1 in terms of the interests of the UC. Repealing SP-1 puts a new face on the university, one that says we want all students to feel welcome. People who oppose the repeal of SP-1 have interests that go beyond the UC – people like Regent Ward Connerly who are running anti-affirmative action measures across the nation. He’s not acting in the interests of the university, but in favor of his own political agenda. But in terms of the UC, I see no reason not to.
Ward Connerly has proposed a new initiative that makes it illegal to collect any information on race. What is your view on Mr. Connerly, and how much influence do you think he has with the other regents and the state in saying that affirmative action is “reverse racism?” Ward Connerly’s Racial Privacy Initiative is a dangerous piece of legislation and there has been objection to it by UC officials. It saddens me that Ward Connerly’s agenda is to erase race. Why should we be ashamed of our racial background? Being Chinese American is a part of who I am and I’m proud of it. I personally believe that Ward Connerly is addicted to the spotlight, that he likes being out there. Unfortunately, it’s at the expense of minorities and low-income communities.
Admissions and the SAT It seems like the admissions process is changing, beginning with the dual admissions plan in preparation for Tidal Wave II, the influx of 60,000 students into the UC expected over the next 10 years. We want to know what this plan aims to accomplish and whether it will increase diversity in the UC, specifically at UCLA and UC Berkeley, or if it is just a short-term solution to a larger problem. In the short term, I don’t think that the dual admissions process will increase diversity on our campuses. I think that what it’s geared toward is increasing the accessibility of our campuses and giving students another way of showing that they’re qualified and capable of doing work at the UC. Right now, out of the 107 or so community colleges, we receive 50 percent of our transfers from about 33 of these colleges and about 80 percent from a little over 50. This tells us that we don’t have an equal distribution and that we’re not reaching out to every community college to get students in, so our diversity coming in through transfers is really not that much different than regular admits. The transfer students are not more diverse than freshman admits – that’s just one of the myths that’s out there.
Along with these changes in the admissions process, we have UC President Richard Atkinson’s proposal to eliminate the SAT I. You’ve said that the test is biased against minorities and low-income communities. Atkinson suggests creating a new test in its place. What test, if any, do you think would not be biased against minority and low-income communities? If we can design tests that are curriculum-based and tell students what we want them to know and then test them on that, then I think we can have a more level playing field. The problem with the SAT right now is that it’s not based on what you’ve learned in school. It’s not based on knowledge anywhere except in private test prep programs. But these programs don’t teach you critical thinking – they teach you how to play percentages and “guesstimating.” So the SAT is fundamentally not based on something accessible to all minority students.
Why not just get rid of standardized testing completely? I am against standardized testing. Though it may not be doable in the short-term, in the long-term I don’t think that standardized testing is necessary in our admissions policy. A number of our campuses have said that they can carry out just as rigorous, just as comprehensive admissions process without standardized tests.
Do you think Atkinson’s proposal has a chance of being approved by the Board of Regents? The proposal is going to go through the Academic Council first. They’re going to research the background and then they’ll bring it to the regents. If they make a good case for it, it has a good chance of passing. There are a lot of urban myths attached to the SAT in terms of what it does and does not measure. A lot of people who advocate on behalf of the SAT don’t know what it is or what it’s supposed to measure. By getting rid of the SAT, we’re not lowering standards, we’re increasing standards by increasing the scrutiny we give to each application. In the future, I’d like to see interviews and better guidelines for our essays.
UC Board of Regents You sit on the Board with 25 other people, most of whom are wealthy businessmen and political donors. In your work with them, do you see yourself affecting their decisions? It’s a challenge. Some of the issues we deal with are being faced by the regents for the first time as well. Whether its merging a hospital or divesting from tobacco, each member has a different background and expertise. So I think the diversity of the board complements the running of the university. But sometimes it’s difficult to get people who haven’t been students for a long time to understand what a $100 or $200 increase in student fees will feel like to the average student.
Do you think the regents represent the diversity of the state? No, the Board of Regents is not representative of the population of California; that’s clear. Many of them try to do what’s in the best interests of the university. There are members of the board who don’t show up to the meetings. This makes the meetings a lot harder. We need to figure out ways to deal with members who are not acting in the best interests of the UC and also have a process for removing them. There should also be increased dialogue. The fact that we only have 30 minutes of public dialogue is a problem because the regents don’t really get to hear all that much from students or other members of the public.
Politics are very much a part of the UC Regents. Should we just accept this? Everything is political, from the Board of Regents to student views. Even a neutral stance is political. The question is whether we want to get rid of politics or establish a balance. That’s an issue on our board now, since regents appointed by both Republican and Democratic governors have to work together for the best interests of the UC. We all have opinions on issues. There’s no doubt that the UC can be used as a political tool, and we have to be wary of abuses of power. The push to repeal SP-1 is in part to prevent the UC from being used as a political tool by Connerly. Everywhere he goes, he touts the UC as a victory, when in reality it was a very slim victory that not everyone agrees with.
Do you think there should be a greater student voice on the UC Board of Regents? Yes. At the minimum, we should have a graduate and an undergraduate student regent, because each involve very different experiences. However, I don’t think there should be a student majority, since some of the issues are very complex and require experience.
What would you tell students about the importance of the Board of Regents to the university? The Board of Regents is like other things that have power over your life; it’s something students should pay attention to. You need to find ways to influence them and keep them accountable.