Roan San Luis came to SF State two years ago expecting to see students from a broader range of ethnic backgrounds. Her expectations as a student have still not been met.

“I was expecting the school to be more diverse than it is," said San Luis, 26. "Its unbalanced. I don’t see many African-Americans, there’s more Asians.”

Since Affirmative Action stopped guiding enrollment procedures in 1996, college students in 2005 come to school with different expectations about who they will see walking around on campus.

James Stewart, a SF State student, said he believes strongly in the importance of a diverse student body. He also said he believes keeping affirmative action would have been a good thing.

“Having Affirmative Action levels the playing field," said Stewart. "It is a leveling mechanism. Varieties of students help people to have an awareness and understanding of people’s cultures and backgrounds."

The affirmative action landscape was rearranged when 54 percent of California voters passed Proposition 209 in 1996. The proposition states that California shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

Although affirmative action is no longer a law, its effects still linger at universities like SF State.

Jo Volkert, the associate vice president of Enrollment Planning and Management at SF State, said the university admits students based primarily on high school academic performance, but does want the ethnic breakdown of its student body to match that of the state.

“We are not allowed to use affirmative action for decisions," said Volkert. "We do many outreaches to make sure we get different backgrounds. We make decisions based on high school (grade point averages) and (Scholastic Aptitude Test) scores.

We want the campus to be educating the youth of California. The ethnicity of the campus should match the rest of the state and community.”

At SF State, 22,291 undergraduates enrolled for the fall 2004 semester. Of that group, 7.2 percent are black, 15.9 percent are Latino, 25.4 percent are Asian, 11.4 percent are Filipino, and 32.8 percent are white, according to university reports.

Lisa Rau, a 19-year-old SF State sophomore, noticed this school year the group of students living in Mary Ward Hall was not diverse.

“People in my dorms were primarily white,” said Rau. “It's really expensive, almost over $800 a month. The people who tended to be more diverse lived (off campus).”

Chris McCarthy, a student at SF State, has also been to UC Berkley, and UCLA. He said he thinks the state should help students from underserved communities get into college.

"(Affirmative Action) should have been used for representing underrepresented minorities," said McCarthy.

"But having quotas for students is illegal and unconstitutional. In some (cases), basing it on races may be appropriate, but economics is useful as well.”