A lawsuit filed in federal court by Students Against Racial Discrimination representing White and Asian would-be applicants seeks to put an end to race-based admissions policies in the sprawling University of California university system.
The suit wants a change in the admissions practices at the school to "ensure compliance with federal antidiscrimination law and the 14th Amendment of the Constitution," according to the Washington Post. If the suit succeeds, it will force the schools to stop considering or asking about race during the admissions process.
“Since the consideration of race in admissions was banned in California in 1996, the University of California has adjusted its admissions practices to comply with the law,” a spokesman for the University of California said on Monday. “UC undergraduate admissions applications collect students’ race and ethnicity for statistical purposes only and they are not used for admission.”
And if you believe that, I've got a drawbridge over the Chicago River I'd like to sell you.
“More lawsuits are coming,” said Jonathan Mitchell, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “Universities continue to defy the law by using race and sex preferences in student admissions and faculty hiring. We will keep suing them until they adopt colorblind admissions and rid themselves of every last vestige of these odious and discriminatory practices.”
According to the complaint, the universities’ discriminatory preferences allow applicants with inferior academic credentials to obtain admission at the expense of rejected candidates with better credentials. The practice discriminates against “large numbers” of Asian American and White applicants denied admission because of their race, the complaint contends, and harms Hispanic and Black students who are “often placed at a significant academic disadvantage, and thus experience worse outcomes, because of the university’s use of racial preferences. Students of all races are harmed by the University of California’s discriminatory behavior.”
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The Post continues:
The lawsuit contends that after the implementation of race-blind admissions, there was a sharp drop in Black freshman enrollment at the two most selective universities, Berkeley and UCLA, and an increase at the less-selective schools in the system. It also claims that Black students at UC schools after the referendum “were generally closer to their peers in levels of academic preparation, grades, persistence in STEM fields, and graduation rates — especially rates of graduation in four years.”
The suit alleges that the UC system spent hundreds of millions of dollars after the 1996 referendum banning race-based admissions to "improve the pipeline from high school to college for students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds," reports the Post.
A 2014 review of admissions records by a UCLA sociologist found that over five years more than 2,000 offers to UCLA were affected by racial preferences benefiting Black and Hispanic undergraduates at the expense of Asian-American and white students, the suit claims. Other UC schools adopted race-based preferences, lifting admission rates for Black and Hispanic students, the suit alleges.
The suit also claims that UC law schools admissions have violated state and federal laws prohibiting racial preference.
The arrogance of these schools is breathtaking. Rather than figuring out how to comply with the law, they work tirelessly, trying to find ways around the law.
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