The message wasn't clear that the Regents had taken away the aspect of gender and race only as it pertains to admissions. At the graduate level, decisions are made by faculty members who read the applications and decide whether this is a good place for you and your research goals, whether there's someone here who can work with you. It's important to understand that they would not admit someone who they thought would be unable to make it through their graduate program. No, there was never a quota system or slots waiting for people. I don't know why that thinking still exists about affirmative action.
People have very different definitions of what affirmative action is.
When some people speak about affirmative action, they say affirmative action allowed someone less qualified to take their slot. When you're a student on the other end of a conversation like that and you're trying to decide whether to uproot your family and travel 3,000 miles across the country to Berkeley, it's unsettling. A lot of people assumed the Regents' decision meant an end to targeted funding. Right now it does not mean that. I get a lot of questions about the environment at Berkeley.