DECLARATION of the Campaign to Eliminate the SAT and Increase Underrepresented Minority Enrollment in the UC System Now

Sign online: Petition to Eliminate the SAT & Achieve Real Equality and Integration in California Education (external link) Download the petition in Word format or Acrobat PDF format to print and distribute

The University of California's education policy, research, and intellectual output are looked to the world over. This is an important responsibility. Charged to serve what is now a majority minority state, it is critical that the UC system represent our state's broad and rich diversity. We must set an example of openness and equality of opportunity, and opposition to racial caste and stratification. We know that separate can never be equal and that integration is an educational and a social imperative.

Yet the University's continued use of the SAT in admissions unfairly excludes disproportionate numbers of black, Latino, Native American, new Asian immigrant, and poor high school students from enrolling at the flagship UC schools, UC Berkeley and UCLA. If the UC system, as a leader in education, itself relies on this biased and academically unsound test, it is tainted by the segregation and racial inequality that have too long poisoned our national life, and a stamp of hypocrisy is placed on our entire project, despite all of our sincere and diligent efforts.

As a result of the use of the SAT as an admissions requirement, the educational environment and quality of student life in the UC system have suffered. The intellectual achievements and capacity of whole layers of the society are undervalued or dismissed. The intellectual output of the UC System has been shortchanged and discredited as a result.

The new civil rights movement that compelled the UC Regents to reverse its initiating attack on affirmative action is now in a position to reverse the resegregation of the UC system. In order to that we must eliminate the SAT.

We are proud to take up this historic opportunity to shape our future in the direction of equality and integration and away from the segregation, inequality, racism and sexism that currently characterize our society. Black, Latina/o, and other minority people will no longer be relegated to second-class facilities. We demand integration and equality.

It is for the above reasons that:

• We call on the Academic Senate and the UC Regents to immediately eliminate the use of the SAT as an admissions requirement, and to increase underrepresented minority student enrollment in the UC system now.

• We endorse the "Petition for Real Equality and Integration in California Education and to Eliminate the Use of the SAT in UC Admissions"
   

PLEASE DO THE FOLLOWING:

• Please add your group to the Statewide Declaration and ask student clubs, student governments, unions, churches, civil rights groups, and other organizations in your school or city sign it: email california@bamn.com.

• Begin circulating the mass petition to eliminate the SAT and increase underrepresented minority enrollment where you are. The petition communicates to the University the wide breadth of our support and is a tremendous organizing tool. Over 9,800 signatures have been gathered already. Word format version  -  Acrobat PDF format
   

  See also: Professors' Declaration

  Factsheet: Why We Must Eliminate the SAT Now

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PARTIAL LIST OF ENDORSERS:

Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN); Diversity, Affirmative Action, and Women's Issues Committee of ASUC (UCB student government); Statewide Association of Graduate Student Employees (AGSE/UAW Local 2865); UCB Cal Democrats; UCB Queer Council; UCB Campus Greens; Oscar Wilde House council (UCB LGBT-themed co-op), Defend Affirmative Action Party (DAAP); Wally Adeyemo (President of ASUC*, UCB student government); Kirk Nishikawa (Director UCB REACH!*); Equal Opportunity Now (EON); Richard Alarcón (CA state senator); Jonathan Kozol (Author, Savage Inequalities); Jeff Johnson (National Director, NAACP Youth and College Division*)
 

Partial list of other organizations and notable individuals who support the call to eliminate the use of the SAT in UC Admissions and increase underrepresented minority student enrollment:

Organizations: 2nd National Conference of the New Civil Rights Movement Feb. 8-10, 2002; Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC, UCB student government); UCB Ethnic Studies Department, UCB Women's Studies Department; Oakland School Board; San Francisco School Board; Oakland Education Association (OEA); UCB American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU); UCB African-American House; Oakland High Youth Power; Northern California Western Association of Educational Opportunity Personnel (WESTOP, sponsor of Upward Bound), American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 771; Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 250; International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10

Individuals: Dennis Chaconas, Superintendent, Oakland Unified School District*; Jill Wynns, President, San Francisco School Board*; Charles Henry, chair of UCB African American Studies department*; Karen Kenney, UCB Dean of Students; Horace Mitchell, UCB Vice Chancellor of Business and Administrative Services; David Moers, UCB Assistant Vice Chancellor of Human Resources; Dionne Aroner (CA state assemblywoman); Alice Walker (Pulitzer Prize winning author); Danny Glover, actor; Merlin Edwards II, Youth and Teen Coordinator, Glide Foundation*; Jordan A. Reed, President of Black Student Union, Santa Cruz High School*; Philip Lane, President and International Coordinator Four Worlds, International Institute for Human and Community Development*. and over 130 professors in the UC System!

*for identification purposes only
Last updated: 2-25-2002

Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration
And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)
www.bamn.com -- california@bamn.com

2-2002