Two stories in today's LA Times will raise eyebrows among skeptics of the University of California admissions processes:
- Amid the growing national debate over the mixing of religion and science in America's classrooms, University of California admissions officials have been accused in a federal civil rights lawsuit of discriminating against high schools that teach creationism and other conservative Christian viewpoints. ... "It appears that the UC system is attempting to secularize Christian schools and prevent them from teaching from a world Christian view," said Patrick H. Tyler, a lawyer with Advocates for Faith and Freedom, which is assisting the plaintiffs. (Link)
- American Indian, African American and Latino admissions to the UC system have gone from 18.6% of total admissions in 1997, the year before elimination of race-conscious admissions, to 20.6% in 2005. (Link)
Concerns have been raised - including by UC regents - that, as I put it in an earlier post, "given the intense opposition to 209 among both students and administrators, it would be surprising if some admissions bureaucrats were not at least subconsciously using discretionary slack in the process to achieve the diversity outcomes they favor." Louis Brandeis famously observed that electric light is the best policeman and sunlight the best disinfectant. Certainly, a greater degree of transparency in the UC admission process seems desirable as long as these sorts of questions are being raised.
