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In the 1970s, white students made up nearly 75 percent of the student body at UCLA, the numbers of black and Hispanic students were on the rise, and Asian American students were less than 10 percent of each class.

Now, white students no longer make up the majority of the population, Asian Americans represent the largest group, and criticism has been focused around the rapid decline of underrepresented minority admits.

The ethnic makeup of University of California students as a whole underwent substantial changes as a result of the changing demographics of the state, the increasingly strict admissions criteria, and the use and then abolishment of affirmative action.

In 1973, white students made up 72.3 percent of the undergraduate student body. By the fall of 1998, the number had dropped to 39.2 percent.

As a result of the continuing measures in place to give underrepresented minorities more of a voice in the United States, the racial demographics at UCLA began to change.

Affirmative action policies were first implemented in the U.S. during the 1960s and 1970s. The idea behind affirmative action was that underrepresented minorities should be given a certain number of spots in public institutions and employment agencies.

This was seen by advocates of the policy as a way for society to give back to the minorities who had been oppressed in the United States.

During the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, black enrollment hovered around 4 percent to 6 percent of the student body. During that time, American Indian and Latino students represented an increasingly large percentage of the student population.

It was in the 1980s, however, that UCLA underwent the most change in terms of the ethnic makeup of the student population.

During that decade, underrepresented minority students reached high numbers at UCLA and other races began to appear at the school in larger numbers as UCLA became more selective, said Thomas Lifka, assistant vice chancellor for student services.

“Beginning in the early ’80s we became increasingly competitive,” Lifka said,

The UC’s admissions policy changed greatly in November 1996 when California voters passed Proposition 209, which prohibited the state from taking race, gender and ethnicity into account for admissions in public universities and public employment.

Lifka said the passage of Proposition 209 – which affected the incoming class of 1998 – has resulted in the low numbers of minority students currently enrolled at UCLA, specifically black students.

“It is the primary reason why we have fewer African American students at UCLA as freshmen, as opposed to previous years,” Lifka said.

Ricardo Vazquez, a UC spokesman, said the number of underrepresented minority students being admitted to the UC system has actually increased since affirmative action was abolished.

But those numbers are not an accurate reflection of the number of underrepresented minorities in California, and the experience at UCLA has been quite the opposite, Vazquez said.

While systemwide the numbers of underrepresented minorities at the UC may have increased since 1996, the number of underrepresented minorities at UCLA decreased in that time.

The decrease in enrollment of black students has been the major focus of media attention in recent years, but there have been other major changes in the student body as well.

Asian Americans now make up the largest group of students at UCLA.

“Asian Americans are fulfilling UC admission requirements by a far greater rate than any other ethnic group,” Vazquez said. “For the first time, Asians are the largest group.”

This is partially due to the fact that more Asian American students are applying to the UC system than any other ethnic group, he said.

Since Proposition 209 passed, UCLA has been using a system of comprehensive review to make its admission decisions. The system is based on three separate parts – academic review, personal achievements and life challenges.

The UCLA admissions Web site states that no numeric factor is given to each section, but the main focus of admission is currently on academic achievements.

“We adopted comprehensive review and asked, have the applicant’s parents been to college? What is the family’s income? Has the student taken honors courses? UCLA decided not to implement comprehensive review as much as Berkeley,” said Ward Connerly, an author of Proposition 209 and a former UC Regent. “As a consequence of that there are fewer black students being admitted to UCLA.”

UCLA has received recent media attention because of its announcement that it may be taking a more holistic approach to admissions, starting as soon as this fall. This approach is similar to the admissions process at UC Berkeley, which enrolls more minority students than UCLA.

Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams said although UCLA will work to improve diversity in the future, the popularity of the school will naturally make it harder for students to gain admission.

“UCLA receives the most numbers of applicants in the nation,” Abrams said. “Berkeley receives about 5,000 under our number of applicants. Let’s say you’ve got a 4.2 (GPA) and a 1300 (SAT score) and another student has got a 4.5 and a 1500. Both are good students, but both have also raised the bar of applicants higher and higher. So we now have to address how these relative students may compare in other areas.”

With reports from Anthony Pesce and Saba Riazati, Bruin senior staff.