Education leaders and scholars met at the University of California at Berkeley on Friday for a daylong conference on the effects of Proposition 209, the 1996 state constitutional amendment that banned state agencies and colleges from allotting benefits and preferences based on race. The number of minority students enrolling in the University of California system declined after Proposition 209 took effect, especially at the most selective campuses.

One panel of professors recommended overhauling the complex, 40-year-old process for determining who is eligible to apply for admission, to take more account of students’ personal achievements apart from grades and SAT scores. Under the proposal, students who are now shut out because of average grades could have their applications reviewed on the basis of leadership positions or ways in which they have triumphed over adversity, the San Jose Mercury News reported. Acceptance to campuses like Berkeley or Los Angeles, however, would still require stellar performance in both academic and nonacademic realms.

The system’s president, Robert C. Dynes, called that proposal provocative, but stopped short of endorsing a change in the state’s master plan for education. He suggested, according to the Contra Costa Times, that the state’s demographics might eventually change enough to overturn the ban. But the timing for such a challenge would have to be right, he said, adding that he would “surely want to win the first” lawsuit.