IT WAS AROUND THIS TIME 21 YEARS AGO THAT PROPOSITION 209 WAS FINALLY IMPLEMENTED: Proposition 209, which prohibited (among other things) state universities from engaging in discrimination or preferential treatment on the basis of race, color, sex, or ethnicity, had been tied up in litigation for nearly a year. But by September the Ninth Circuit had spoken and en banc review had been denied. The University of California has no choice but to conduct its admissions season as if Proposition 209 was the law … because it was the law.

At the end of the admissions season, UC Berkeley leaked the results to the L.A. Times, which screamed in its headline, “Acceptance of Blacks, Latinos to UC Plunges.” This was highly misleading. While the numbers of Blacks and Latinos had decreased at UC Berkeley, they had increased dramatically at Riverside and at Santa Cruz.

More important—indeed more important than anything—the grades of black students had dramatically increased (and the internal documents at UC-San Diego made it clear that their experts understood exactly why this happened).  You can read about it in The Politics of Admissions in California.