FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Leslie A. Dunbar (212)558-5438

ldunbar@nul.org

New York, NY, April 5, 2000–National Urban League President Hugh B. Price today denounced the impact California’s Proposition 209 is having on minority admissions to the most competitive campuses in the California university system, and warns that abolishing affirmative action nationwide in the college admissions process will lead to minorities "cascading" down to less selective campuses.

"An article in today’s New York Times clearly illustrates what I have been warning for some time," Price said.

According to the article, in the wake of Proposition 209, minority enrollment is way down at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of California at Los Angeles, the most highly rated and selective schools in the California university system. Meanwhile, African-American, Hispanic and American Indian enrollment is up at the campuses of Irvine, Riverside and Santa Cruz, the less competitive schools. Affirmative action opponent Ward Connerly, who is quoted, contends that these students are just being ‘redistributed’ to the less selective campuses.

"The Urban League welcomes the stabilization of minority enrollment across the university of California system, and has every confidence that the students will be well-served," Price said in response. "However we are unwilling to allow our students to settle for a less competitive education."

Price points to studies which show that young people within a broad range of test scores can do quite well in highly competitive colleges. "The SAT scores of George W. Bush and Bill Bradley indicate that students with modest SAT scores can become national leaders–and in Bradley’s case even a Rhodes Scholar–when they attend elite schools. They clearly belonged on those campuses. So do our students. Therefore, the net loss of minority students in the most competitive colleges is a severe blow to the hopes and aspirations of African American and minority students."

— more —

Hugh B. Price is President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Urban League, the nation’s premier social service and civil rights organization serving African-Americans and others who are striving to enter the economic mainstream. He was appointed on July 1, 1994. From 1978 to 1982, Price was a member of the Editorial Board of The New York Times, where he wrote editorials on a broad range of public policy issues, including education.

Founded in 1910, the National Urban League is a nonprofit organization whose 115 affiliates in 35 states and the District of Columbia provide direct services focused on empowering African-Americans to achieve economic, academic and racial equality. The League’s headquarters is located at 120 Wall Street in New York City.