Classmates at the University of California, San Diego asked Zim Ezumah about her hair. They asked her if she could do the Crip Walk. They asked if she was on a basketball scholarship.
Ezumah, who went to high school in south central Los Angeles, knew there weren't many other black students at her new university. But she was stunned by just how alone she felt.
Black students are a rarity at UCSD. Only 1.6 percent of its undergraduate students are black, a stat that has become a rallying cry after an escalating series of racially offensive events around the university over the past month, starting with an off-campus "Compton Cookout" mocking Black History Month and culminating with a Ku Klux Klan hood on a campus statue. The Black Student Union demanded that the school increase its numbers of black students and faculty, calling them "embarrassingly low."
Bringing in black students has been a problem for all the University of California schools: Ending affirmative action caused a steep drop in black student enrollment across the system 14 years ago, especially at elite schools.
But the problem is especially marked at UCSD: Only 41 black freshmen enrolled out of 3,566 California students this fall, the lowest rate among all UC schools.
Several forces have kept black student numbers low on the leafy La Jolla campus. The San Diego school has trouble convincing black students who are admitted to say yes, partly because it plays second banana to more alluring schools, partly because of a bad reputation in the black community. It also uses an admissions formula that critics believe disadvantages black students because it doesn't adequately weigh their grades and scores against the opportunities they may or may not have.
Only 17 percent of black freshmen who were admitted to UCSD actually decided to go there last year, compared to 44 percent of black students admitted to Berkeley and 54 percent at UCLA. Black students are usually more likely to say yes to UC schools than their white and Asian classmates, but in San Diego, the exact opposite has happened.
"I even had kids choose Riverside over UCSD," said former Lincoln High principal Wendell Bass. "They don't see it as a place where black kids go."
But turning around the numbers won't be simple. It means changing the culture of the school, its reputation, and attracting black students without setting off affirmative action alarm bells.
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All students must take three steps before ending up at the elite San Diego school.
They have to earn the credits and grades to be eligible to apply in the first place. They must beat out other candidates for the selective school. And once they get accepted, they have to choose UCSD over other schools.
UCSD has struggled hardest with winning over accepted black students. UCSD is generally seen as less desirable than UCLA and Berkeley -- for all students. It lacks a vibrant center like Telegraph Avenue. It ranks lower on national