Dolores Huerta, newly appointed to the University of California Board of Regents, is deeply troubled that many UC campuses have refused to take new students for the winter term as a way of grappling with the state's budget crisis.

The cofounder of the United Farm Workers union will attend her first regents meeting this week, during some of the university's darkest days. Steep budget cuts and a booming college-age population have prompted the university to ignore a promise outlined in the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education to admit all eligible students. Despite transfer guarantees, some applicants from community-colleges weren't even looked at.

"That's really terrible," Huerta, 73, said in a telephone interview with reporters Monday. "We should accept the students who finish community college and want to go onto higher education. Most are from working families."

A political icon in California, Huerta has dedicated her life to establishing rights for migrant farmworkers. She said she will try to bring her fight for social justice to the university arena.

She called for greater diversity among the student body and faculty. Huerta was an outspoken critic of Proposition 209, which prohibited the state from using race-based affirmative action in university admissions, hiring and public contracting. Since voters approved the measure in 1996, the percentage of African-American, Latino and Native American students has declined at the university's flagship campuses, UC Berkeley and UCLA, but it has increased overall in the eight undergraduate campus system.

"We don't feel there are enough people of color in the university system," Huerta said. "This is what I want to bring to the regents, ... this mission of social justice and (to) do the best that I can."

Huerta's appointment ends March 1, but she said she hopes the governor will reappoint her to a 12-year term.

Gov. Gray Davis agreed to nominate Huerta to the board after a state senator threatened to derail his plan of shifting Regent Norman Pattiz, who has given generously to two Davis campaign committees fighting the gubernatorial recall, to a vacancy that expires in 2014. Huerta was given Pattiz's vacancy, which ends in March.

Huerta said she is grateful for the chance to serve on the board and did not criticize the politics of the process. She said that Pattiz, a prominent figure in the broadcasting industry, is a valuable asset to the university. It is common, she said, for governors to appoint people whom they like. Former Gov. Pete Wilson, for example, appointed Ward Connerly, she said, "who has done so much damage to the education system," referring to the Prop. 209 campaign, which Connerly led.

She lauded the board for overwhelmingly passing a resolution opposing Prop. 54, an initiative authored by Connerly that would ban state government from collecting racial data.

Asked why she would want to take on such a big job as regent when she is active in other arenas, Huerta responded:

"Our educational system is the most critical and the most important thing going on in our country and in the state of California ... When one goes to college, everything opens up. You learn about art and philosophy and history and you learn about the world, which is something you don't get in high school ... Education teaches tolerance. ... I wish that every single person could have an education."

Huerta is taking on higher education issues at a bleak time. UC turned away 1,600 community-college transfer and freshman winter term applicants. Budget cuts are forcing the California State University system to turn away roughly 20,000 midyear freshmen and transfers. It's a bad sign for next fall. Already, the UC regents plan to discuss turning away 5,000 eligible students for the 2004-05 academic year.

Asked how Huerta would prioritize between limiting access and maintaining the quality of the university, she responded, "Part of academic excellence has to be integration. Not just ethnic integration, but economic integration."