Eight years after voters in Washington State approved a referendum to ban racial preferences in college admissions, the college-going rates of black, Hispanic, and Native American high-school students continue to lag behind those of their white and Asian peers, according to a draft report by the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board.

And despite efforts by the state and many of its colleges to better prepare and recruit minority students since the 1998 passage of the ban on race-conscious admissions, the percentage of black and Hispanic students enrolled in the state’s public four-year colleges remained lower than those groups’ share of the state’s population age 17 to 39, according to the report, which is the subject of hearings across Washington this week, the Associated Press reported today.

The report makes several recommendations for how the state could increase diversity among students and faculty members at its institutions. Those include expanding college-preparation programs for minority students in junior high school and high school and starting visiting-professorship programs among Washington colleges and historically black and predominantly Hispanic institutions.