WASHINGTON –
The elimination of affirmative action in California,
Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi has had a chilling effect on the
enrollment and acceptance of racial and ethnic minorities in medical
schools across the country, according to the Association of American
Medical Colleges (AAMC).
The data from AAMC, which was released earlier this month, found
that the number of applications to medical schools in those four states
from African American, Native American, Mexican American/Chicano, and
Puerto Rican students living in those states dropped 17 percent in 1997.
In comparison, the number of trader-represented students not living
in those states applying to medical schools outside of California,
Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi declined by only 4 percent. This is
part of an overall drop in applications to medical schools – from both
minority and non-minority populations – of 8.4 percent.
AAMC data also showed that 125 fewer minority students living in
states where affirmative action has been rolled back pursued careers in
medicine in 1997.
The enrollment decline, said Jordan Cohen, M.D., AAMC’s president,
reflects the “hostile environment” that the Hopwood case and
Proposition 209 has spawned in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and
California.
Hopwood is the case on which the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled last year that the University of Texas law school could not use
race or ethnicity as a factor in admissions. That ruling affects Fifth
Circuit states – Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Proposition 209 was
a referendum item passed last year by voters in California eliminating
all affirmative action in state contracting and state-operated college
admissions. Because the Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to
the law earlier this fall, many observers believe that it is ready to
overturn all affirmative action programs.
