You can take the criminal deviant off the streets but . . .

From The 1969 Gunfight at UCLA by Gail Heriot. Ms. Heriot has, sometime in the past year, become an occasional contributor to Instapundit and I have been enjoying her insight and information about issue mainstream and quirky. In this instance, a classic case of good intentions overlooking human nature:

Fifty years ago today, rival gangs, made up in part of “High Potential Program” students, fought it out on campus, leaving two dead.

The tiny “High Potential Program” was UCLA’s early, experimental form of affirmative action. Unlike today’s affirmative action programs, which primarily benefit middle- and upper-middle-class students, this was a real effort to benefit young people born on the wrong side of the tracks. As one might expect, UCLA relaxed the academic qualifications for this project. One of the founders of the program put it this way: “A high school diploma was not a requisite. We recruited people who were active in their community and who had the ability to lead.”

Here’s the crazy part: In practice, the leadership requirement meant that UCLA wanted—and actively recruited–leaders of street gangs, especially those involved in black nationalism. A history of violence was no barrier to admission.

Not a lot of learning went on in the special classes conducted for the program. Linda Chavez, a UCLA grad student at the time, wrote about her experiences in teaching classes for Chicano High Potential students in An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal. I won’t spoil her story here. Suffice it to say it wasn’t pretty.

Among the students recruited for the program was Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter. Carter was the former leader of the Slauson gang, a mega-gang in South Central Los Angeles, and was known as “Mayor of the Ghetto.” Shortly before registering at UCLA he had spent four years in Soledad prison for armed robbery, where he had become a disciple of Malcolm X. In 1967, after meeting Black Panther Minister of Defense Huey Newton, he formed the Southern California chapter of the Black Panther Party, mostly out of members of the Slauson gang.

John Jerome Huggins was Carter’s right-hand man; it was only natural that they would attend UCLA together. Huggins’ apartment was a meeting place for Black Panthers. A cache of weapons, including rifles, shotguns, handguns and homemade bombs, was kept there.

Read the whole thing.