This fall, 4,852 freshmen are expected to enroll at UCLA. Any guess as to how many are African-American? I'll give you a hint. The county in which the campus is located is about 9.8 percent African-American. If you guessed that the incoming freshmen class would include roughly 500 African-Americans, which would be a little over 10 percent, you would be too high. If you guessed roughly 250, which would be a little over five percent, you would be too high. If you guessed roughly 125, which would be a little over 2.5 percent, you would still be too high.

According to the L.A. Times, only 96 of the incoming freshmen are African-American, which is about two percent. That's the lowest figure since 1973 and should be a concern to all. Last year's freshman class had 116 African-Americans.

"Clearly, we're going to have to meet this crisis by redoubling our efforts, which have not yielded the results we'd like to see," Chancellor Albert Carnesale told the L.A. Times. Carnesale described the preliminary numbers for African-American freshmen as "a great disappointment" and said that UCLA has been trying for years to boost those levels, within the limits allowed by law. He said that the causes are complex and are partly due to the restrictions placed on California's public colleges and institutions by Proposition 209, the 1996 voter initiative that banned consideration of race and gender in admissions and hiring.