♪ vive en el estado dorado ♪ >> building a better bay area. moving forward. finding solutions. this is abc7 news. ♪ i'm kristen sze. you are watching "getting answers" on abc7. every day, we talk with experts about issues important to the bay area and we get answers for you in real time.

today, the biden administration is trying to turn the tide on worsening wildfires in the west with a massive cleanup of forests. will it be enough to prevent a season of possibly devastating wildfires? we will talk with the usda forest service official about the plan. also, there she is, miss california. she has a uc berkeley masters degree holder and accomplished equestrian and olympic hopeful and just the second black contestant to capture the title. we will meet the newly crowned state winner of the miss america pageant, sabrina lewis. we didn't have to wait long, as expected, the war over college admissions has begun, today three groups filed a lawsuit against harvard over preferential admissions for the children of alumni. known as legacies. this just days after the supreme court band the use of race as a standalone factor in college admissions. joining us now to look at the developments and the big picture of where we go from here is the

vice provost for graduate admission at uc berkeley and the professional -- and a professor at the school of education. thank you so much for joining us, dean and vice provost and professor. a lot to talk about, starting with today's lawsuit challenging legacy references. explain to people who filed this and what they are alleging. >> it is a coalition of groups, of civil rights organizations, their argument is within the context of the recent supreme court ruling, that it is similarly inappropriate to use legacy status, which is both being the child of an alumni or also the child of a donor to the institution. in some private universities, those in the vigils can make up to a quarter of the incoming class in any given year. folks think that by definition, these individuals are much more likely to be wealthy and white, and it also doesn't support the

idea admissions is about merit. karina: since the elite universities historically had more white students and therefore you have a bigger will love their children if you will applying, is a quantified in such a way that they get an automatic boost because they are legacy or their parents donated a lot or is it kind of not quantified, just when we got to the end, we will throw your name in the pile kind of thing? >> depending on the institution, every school operationalize d it differently. most universities don't share the information on how they determine these things. so we, don't know. but the lawsuit alleges individuals were six times more likely to be offered admission down someone who wasn't. -- than someone who wasn't. kristen: even if you accepted the children of legacy got the

benefits of great education, support, did you say 60 times more likely to be admitted? >> >> six times. doesn't account for all of it which is probably why legacy preference is very unpopular, a new posting 75% of respondents saying no to legacy preferences. 52% support the supreme court decision banning consideration of race. still it indoors at most elite private schools. what is the rationale from the school's perspective as to how they are defending this? >> they want to enc to have a relationship with the university. they want to cultivate the relationships with their alumni. they want donors to give. so it is part of a whole ecosystem that happens in higher education where once you graduate from these schools, they are continually trying to bring you in and get you to be involved. they want to be able to give you some benefit for having had

that relationship with the institution. kristen: is that still defensible in this day and age? one thing i've often heard is, oh, you want if you big donors because the money they donate -- the building that they build or the funding they give to programs will fund everybody else and allow these 100 or 1000 financially needy students to attend. what do you make of that? >> > -- >> speaking for myself, i don't think it is morally defensible. it should be separate. whether or not you want to give to a particular institution because you believe in what they do or you believe in the impact that they have on you and your life. that is one thing. it seems to me like just giving a certain amount of money should i guarantee your child admission into that institution -- shouldn't guarantee your child admission into that institution. kristen: uc does consider athletics or recruitment. athletes to get a boost, as they do at most universities. i'm not saying that is the sole reason.

what was varsity blues, the scandal where wealthy parents paid to get fake athletic credentials as a backdoor in. what do you make of that? should athletes >> it is similar to legacy in the sense of how it works at each place and how much weight athletics has. it varies significantly across institutions. there's a separate admission process for athletics because the timing doesn't always align with the timing of how we do admissions for all other types of students. but it's not that because you are an athlete you are somehow going to jump the line for somebody else. what that means for different institutions varies quite a bit. kristen: i want to dive in on what is next, in the wake of the supreme court decision. uc has not been able to use race per se due to prop 209 back in

1996. have a lot of experience in trying to build diverse classes and a diverse student body that can learn from each other without that specific boost for race. talk about how that can be done. i'm sure universities all over the country are now consulting uc. >> the good news is we've had 30 years to figure this out. it's not perfect but we've learned a lot. essentially what we are trained to do is address the fact that the k-12 educational system is quite unequal. if you think about what it is we look for in students in terms of academic programs, having been involved in leadership, having participated in sports, those opportunities are not equally distributed across our students. not all students have the same opportunities. what we do at uc as we evaluate our candidates in context. we know what their context -- high school context looks like, we know how many ap courses were offered. if you took four ap courses in

your school only offered five, that is going to have more weight than offeredif they -- than if they offered 10. where kids come from and how they were able to excel or be extraordinary within that particular context. we do not know the race or gender of a student when they apply. we do know something about their neighborhood, their social and economic background and what they disclose on their essays. it is looking at opportunity structures and doing the best to evaluate their success within the context of what was offered to them during their high school career. kristen: and doing it that i think you have varying levels of success at the different uc campuses to maintain the diversity you are looking for that reflexive population. >> we are still not where we need to be in the university of

california. as an example, about 56% of graduating seniors this past spring would have been from the latino community. we are at about 22% latino students within the system, systemwide. obviously it's not a perfect system. but we've gotten much better. we've been much better able to take into account the inequities that exist in u.s. society and really evaluate a student's merit and potential based upon personal capacities and not just what family they happen to be born into. kristen: if you already have such a system that takes into account challenges, adversity, the opportunities, you can talk about your life experiences and stories, as affirmative action even still necessary? would it actually still be helpful? what do you think? >> the truth is, affirmative action does a better job even then the systems that we come up

with a gun the opportunity structures afforded to students are so different in u.s. society and because of the history of racial stratification in the u.s., those opportunities are often differentially distribute it by race. when it to remember that we need to remember that people of color and women were legally barred from attending institutions. that history of exclusion still has an impact and we have tried to do our best to accommodate that but affirmative action is still the most effective way to do that. kristen: what do you expect elite private colleges may do this summer as they digest both the ruling and also the new lawsuit? you don't have to wait for a ruling to think maybe i should go in a different direction. what do you expect will happen when the new class applies? >> i think it's going to bury a lot. it's important to remember. -- to vary a lot. it's important to remember the application has to be

in the next couple of months so the ruling comes late in the process and some schools have already adjusted based on what they suspect that was going to come out in terms of a ruling. but i think people are going to be changing their applications and changing the questions they ask. it will have to change other systems. some schools will take full advantage of the legal room that still exists, in terms of being able to consider the whole student. and others depending on their campus counsel or their leadership may be more conservative and actually not take full advantage of what is legally permissible under the new rules. kristen: and perhaps fewer legacy slots. lisa garcia pretoria, thank you so much for joining us today. when we come back, the federal government's's multibillion-dollar efforts to mitigate

kristen: wildfire season is here" are busy all around california and the west of the country working to mitigate the risk of devastating wildfires. this includes billions of dollars in federal money to clean up forests f dead trees and undergrowth. joining me to talk about it is the senior executive of intergovernmental relations for the u.s. forest service, brian, thanks for your time. your department deals with america's national forests. our many in fact tinderboxes right now? >> many of them have wildfire concerns or issues to be a will given the nature of their stands now. kristen: which are most at risk in california right now? >> in california it's not about

the individual forest as much as parts of each of those forests have what we would call high-risk or high severity when it comes to potential wildfire. kristen: which parts of the forest? maybe you can explain that as part of explaining the risks and dangers. >> up and down the sierra nevada range, southern california, northern california, really most of the forests in california do have some level of high severity risk. kristen: is this due to recent weather conditions? or is it due to long-standing practices if you will in terms of how we treat our forests? >> great question. it's a combination of a number of factors. it's clearly some of our past management actions, going into suppression, we know a lot of these landscapes evolved with fire. so fire is a necessary part of

the ecological process. in addition to previous management decisions. you have drought, climate change, we also are seeing a growing increase of development in what we call that while -- that interface which makes it difficult to suppress fire and treat those landscapes. kristen:kristen: so basically there's a whole lot to burn right now. so you are doing something. the infrastructure bill passed by congress two years ago produced billions in funding and some of that will go towards forest improvement. tell us about those efforts. >> our agency put out wildfire crisis strategy a little bit more than a year ago to focus on changing our publix communities and natural resources are experiencing wildfires. we are significant significant magnifiers now. they are really burning massive amounts of acres. the focus of the strategy is to treat those right lands

at the right scale in the right places so that we get the kind of outcome we want. which is to mitigate wildfire impacts to communities, habitats, recreational values, if you will. kristen: can we talk about the many dead trees killed by prolonged droughts, insects? what is the plan there? >> our plan is to look at these landscapes, focusing on what we call the highest risk areas first and moving up from there. the intent is to go in and where we need to mechanically treat, we will do so first, then we will come back in with prescribed burning to really reduce that fire potential intensity that we are experiencing in our plant. we are really looking at it from a standpoint of where the greatest hazards are.

kristen: what about logging? i'm wondering if the wildfire risk is changing views about logging in national forest lands. >> we see mechanical treatment on logging as an essential tool to delivering on wildfire crisis strategy -- on the wildfire crisis strategy. many landscapes are so dense that you cannot just immediately put prescribed burning in them. and quite honestly if they experience it wildfire, given the density in the amount of fuels, we are concerned about having more catastrophic events. logging can mechanical treatment is one of the tools that we use to reduce fuels and get it to a state where we can start to prescribe burn. kristen: as you approach this, for the folks who visitor to the national parks, forests, what advice do you have for them? >> i would ask public, to really understand the conditions of the nation's

forests and the kind of work that needs to occur if we want to secure the kind of values and opportunities are public -- our public want to experience. they are visiting because of the aesthetic beauty and the water recreational opportunities and we want to maintain those things into the future. but in order to do that, we really have to treat these stands. when it social understanding and social acceptance. kristen: brian thank you so much for your time today. we will be right back the bay area woman now wearing the crown of miss

kristen: she might be a bit of an over achiever, sabrina lewis just turned her masters degree at uc berkeley, she is a decorated equestrian, who shared

that passion this past week until win the miss california title in the miss america pageant. joining us now is miss california, 26-year-old sabrina lewis. congratulations. hi! >> thank you so much. i'm so happy to be interviewed with you guys. so happy to have won $20,000 in scholarship money. kristen: that is so exciting. has this sunken in yet? what's it been like for you? >> is been a whirlwind roller coaster -- it's been a whirlwind roller coaster. right after i won, i was bombarded by all my sisters. we took the beautiful pictures. i got a bunch of congratulatory texts from my friends. i am up here in the bay area now for the fourth of july parade tomorrow. kristen: where are you going to be, which one? >> is going to be in redwood city -- it's going to be in redwood city. kristen: look at this. this is the moment where you work around -- were crowned

california. i think you are the first black contestant to win since 1987, you are breaking barriers and all sorts of ways, talk about how you did it, sharing your equestrian talent. >> i am actually the third african-american crown, the last one was danielle kony in 1998. it's been 25 years since an african-american woman has her presented the organization. i am so excited to bring diversity not only to the pageant world but also to the equestrian world. it's been a dream of mine to compete in the olympics one day. i'm hoping that will come true, after i serve as miss america. kristen: 2028 i guess? >> yes. in los angeles. kristen: we are rooting for you. talk a little bit more about your equestrian passion and what particular event you do. how you got into it. he probably didn't see a lot of girls will look like you doing it when you were a kid, and you said, that's what you want to.

>> nobody that looked like did that growing up you read my parents are not even animal people. i was not even allowed to have any pets. my next-door neighbor picked me up after school. she loved horses. her own kid students. so she passed on her love of animals to me. i've been writing ever since -- riding ever since. in undergrad at uc berkeley. now with the united states hunter jumper association and also the director draing at aofit at oakland city stables ca mropolitan equestrian preservation s we bring more people of color, the city of oakland, that we are ride. we also work with dabd people and military veterans. this a special opportunity that you have here to share this. why was this so important to you in your life? >> equine therapy -- horses are so therapeutic. it is a joy to ride. the people that i work with confined to a wheelchair, some of the hip movements

are very similar to walking. .