The University of California at Irvine

The Machado case took place at the University of California at Irvine, located in Orange County, California. This document provides some background information on the University itself and on race relations on campus and in Orange County.

UCI–The University of California, Irvine

The UCI admissions web page states the following:

UCI has been ranked prominently along with much older universities for excellence in the arts and humanities, earth system science, management, social sciences, technology, and information systems. For quality of educational experience and caliber of faculty, UCI consistently ranks among the nation's 10 best public universities, and among the top 50 universities overall. Election to the American Association of Universities (AAU), a group of 60 of the most distinguished research institutions, is another indication of UCI's stature in the academic community.

UCI is a young university, founded in 1964, with its first graduating class in 1968. It has nevertheless achieved distinction as an excellent public university. Admissions standards are competitive, with the average high school GPA being 3.7 and median SAT scores (verbal + math) about 1100.

Orange County

Orange County, California is part of the metro area that makes up the greater Los Angeles area. It is on the southern edge of Los Angeles, and is host to the University of California, Irvine. It is a multi-ethic society, and citizens expect that dealing with race relations will be with them for some time. The following figures are taken from the 1996 Orange County Annual Survey, done by the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of California, Irvine.

Most people felt the economy was in good shape and that jobs were easy to find
Crime and immigration were rated as the top two problems people felt needed attention
52% of whites reporting voting 4 or more times over the last four years, while only 15% of Hispanics and 6% of Asians reported this much political involvement.

Race and College Representation in California, Orange County, and UCI

Over the past decade, "minority" races have become the majority in California. This is true for Orange County and the University of California, Irvine as well. The table below shows the percentages of the total population that are accounted for by each of several racial groups, using categories from the 1990 census report. Note that though the percentage of Hispanics in the population has been increasing rapidly, their representation at UC, Irvine has remained relatively steady.

	Year	Black	Native American	Asian	Hispanic	Total
California	1990	8%	1%	10%	26%	44%
	1996	8%	1%	12%	30%	50%
	1999	8%	1%	12%	32%	52%
Orange County	1990	2%	1%	10%	23%	36%
	1996	2%	1%	13%	27%	43%
	1999	2%	1%	13%	29%	45%
U.C. Irvine	1990	3%	1%	37%	10%	51%
	1996	2%	1%	47%	12%	62%
	1999	2%	0.5%	50%	10%	62%

These data were taken from US census estimates for California and Orange County and from data provided by the Office of Analytical Studies & Information Management at UCI.

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