Rebuilding Jordan Downs: 

A project of the Poor People's Campaign, residents of Jordan Downs recently came together at a community forum to discuss the future of their neighborhood and ways to improve it.  See the links below for media coverage of the event....

         OurWeekly

           LA Sentinel

Empowering Community with Education:

SCLC launches pre-apprentice class.

(Click here for story)   (Click here for list of classes)

Poor People's Campaign:

The Poor People's Campaign seeks to directly compel America to redress the policies that create and substantiate poverty, oppress the poor, and deny people the right to live with dignity, respect, justice, equality, and freedom.

4.8 million Californians live in poverty and while the United States of America remains a super world power, a vast majority of inner city residents are held in perpetual poverty. Cries of injustice went unheard to those in power. In March 2007, a list of distinguished community leaders formed a coalition consisting of community based organizations, businesses and individuals to respond to the devastating impact poverty was having on communities of color.

The solution was economic justice through the revival of Dr. King’s Poor People Campaign. On April 4, 2007 Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign was officially launched with the support of hundreds of Los Angeles residents. This effort seeks to eradicate poverty by creating livable wage jobs and creating the society that Dr. King had envisioned, where even the very least among us would have an opportunity to live with freedom, dignity, respect and justice.

Please CLICK HERE to learn more about the Poor People's Campaign.

Stand for Security Coalition:  

SCLC of Greater Los Angeles is an active participant in the campaign to unionize 10,000 security officers in Los Angeles County. The four year campaign to improve wages, gain access to affordable health care benefits and improve working conditions for Los Angeles security officers is being fought against some of the wealthiest building owners in downtown Los Angeles. 65% of the 10,000 security officers are African American, and 95% of all security officers live in South Central Los Angeles. Please see www.standforsecuritycoalition.com.

Alliance For Equal Opportunity in Education:  

The group, which includes the leaders of the Los Angeles Urban League, NAACP, SCLC, Brotherhood Crusade, UCLA African Student Union, UCLA Black Alumni Association, Community Call to Action and Accountability, representatives from the offices of Assemblywoman Karen Bass, African American Collaborative and others, formalized under the name The Alliance for Equal Opportunity in Education.

African American leaders have been meeting weekly since June after a Los Angeles Times article ran on the staggering low number of African American students planning to enroll for the 2006 freshman class at UCLA. The first meeting was convened by Dr. Washington at the Los Angeles NAACP.

UCLA African-American Admissions Fact Sheet

1. Based on the University of California's mission as a land grant institution, UCLA is mandated to enroll a student population that is reflective of the state's general population.

• In 2001, the UC Regents reaffirmed that "...[T]he University shall seek out and enroll, on each of its campuses, a student body that demonstrates high academic achievement or exceptional personal talent, and that encompasses the broad diversity of backgrounds characteristic of California."

• African American students are approximately 8% of the 6.3 million pupils that attend California's public K-12 system. Over 10% of Los Angeles Unified School's District's pupils are African-American. Los Angeles has the second largest black population (876,304) of all the nation's counties.

2. UCLA has failed to live up to this mission, denying admission to deserving African American       applicants and allowing the African American presence on campus to virtually disappear.

• For Fall 2005, UCLA ranked 29 th in the   admission of African American students out of the Top 30 highly selective colleges and universities (give percentage).

• Percentages of incoming African-American students at other top California schools for Fall 2005:
  • Stanford: 9.5%
  • University of Southern California: 4.8%
  • University of California, Berkeley 3.1%

• For Fall 2006, only 96 African-American students will be among the entering freshman class of over 4800 at UCLA. This represents only 2% of the entire Fall 2006 freshman class and is the smallest African-American freshman class in more than 30 years. UCLA admitted only 1 out of every 9 African-American applicants for Fall 2006 - the lowest ever - while admitting 1 out 4 of all other applicants.

• African-American students, at less than 3% of the student body, are grossly underrepresented at UCLA. UCLA continues to admit fewer and fewer African-American students, despite consistently higher rates of UC eligibility among African-Americans and consistently increasing numbers of African-American applicants (more than any other UC campus).

3. UCLA's admission process violates the principle of comprehensive review, failing to adequately place       grades and test scores in their proper socio-economic and cultural contexts.

• UCLA does not employ a "comprehensive review" or holistic approach to evaluate an applicant's academic achievement and personal circumstances. Rather, academic achievement is ranked independent of the other non-academic achievement factors, yet viewed together for the final admission decision.   Thus academic achievement is taken at face value or weighted exactly the same for all applicants without accounting for personal circumstances, which ultimately appears to disadvantage deserving African American students.

• 37% of California's African American students attend public schools where the enrollment is over 90% students of color. Students that attend schools that are severely segregated are far more likely to face school conditions such as overcrowding, inadequate funding, and a shortage of qualified teachers, counselors, and college preparatory classes.

• The California Master Plan:
  • Recommends that CSU and UC "consider both objective and qualitative personal characteristics equally" in the process of admitting freshmen.   [Rec. 12.2]
  • Authorizes UC and CSU to admit up to 6% and 8%, respectively, of new undergraduates annually "through the use of non-traditional criteria.   [Rec. 12.3]".

ALLIANCE FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN EDUCATION
BACKGROUND

African American leaders have been meeting weekly since June after a Los Angeles Times article ran on the staggering low number of African American students planning to enroll for the 2006 freshman class at UCLA. The first meeting was convened by Dr. Washington at the Los Angeles NAACP.

The group, which includes the leaders of the Los Angeles Urban League, NAACP, SCLC, Brotherhood Crusade, UCLA African Student Union, UCLA Black Alumni Association, Community Call to Action and Accountability, representatives from the offices of Assemblywoman Karen Bass, African American Collaborative and others, formalized under the name The Alliance for Equal Opportunity in Education.

Over the past 30 days, we have completed the following:

1. Developed four demands for the UCLA administration:
   • Undertake a complete overhaul of the UCLA admissions procedure to holistically consider each student applicant and adequately contextualize the applicant's achievements and performance with immediate and demonstrative actions to increase African American admissions and enrollment.
   • Participation by the Alliance for Equal Opportunity in Education, additional African American local leaders and the African American leadership on campus in the search for and selection of the new UCLA Chancellor.
   • Quarterly meetings with the Alliance for Equal Opportunity in Education, the UCLA Black Alumni Association, African American leadership on campus and the new Chancellor, the UC Board of Regents and the Faculty Admissions Committee to monitor the status of efforts to increase African American admissions and enrollment.
   • Provide statistics and information as to which colleges and universities African American students who are not admitted to UCLA ultimately enroll.
     
2. Held a formal press conference on the UCLA campus in June. The conference was extremely well attended/covered by the media (lead story on several stations). 
   
3. A letter was sent to UC Regents President Dyne and an open letter was sent to UCLA's Acting Chancellor Abrams, insisting upon a meeting with the Alliance to discuss the demands.
   
4. Notified the Mayor of our outrage and received his verbal support for the cause (which included his explicit mentioning of the issue in his UCLA commencement speech).  Also have set ball in motion for him to meet with the Alliance on this issue (Date not confirmed, but Mayor requested meeting.)
   
5. Developed a timeline of activities/events over the next few months, culminating in a massive rally on UCLA campus in October.
   
6. Worked with other groups that are forming/working on this issue, including Dr. Winston Doby, Bill Elkins and others.
   
7. Requested that each of our organization's Boards (or Board Chairs) write a letter to the Chancellor expressing their outrage. Several letters were sent.
   
8. Conducted interviews on KFI, KJLH Speakout, Comcast and others.
   
9. Determined that the Alliance will remain focused on the mission of transforming the UCLA admissions policy, while monitoring the efforts of other groups focused on enrollment yield and educational competitiveness of African American students.