September 1, 2008

Professor Suspects UCLA Is Illegally Using Race in Admissions Decisions

A political-science professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, who says he suspects that his institution is “cheating on admissions” by illegally taking into account the race of student applicants, has resigned from a university admissions committee in protest.

The professor, Tim Groseclose, who has made his suspicions public in a report he posted on his UCLA Web site, says high-ranking administrators at the university and members of the committee are “engaged in a cover up” by refusing to allow him access to data about applicants so he can investigate his concerns. He says that the university’s new “holistic” approach to evaluating students allows it to let the race of applicants carry more weight than is allowed under a constitutional amendment that California voters adopted in 1996. The percentage of black students admitted as freshmen rose sharply after the new admissions policy was adopted, in 2006.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the number of entering black students edged up this fall, to 230 out of of 4,889 freshmen. In 2006, 103 black students entered as freshmen. University officials said Mr. Groseclose’s conclusions that race-conscious admissions policies played a factor failed to take into account the higher level of recruiting that the university has undertaken since then.

The study is likely to add fuel to the continuing debate over affirmative action in college admissions. Ward Connerly, the Californian whose activism first led to California’s 1996 ban on the use of race in admission and whose American Civil Rights Institute is seeking to propose similar bans through ballot questions in three states this November, told the Times that the study might become grounds for a lawsuit against the university.

Mr. Groseclose has been in the eye of a news-media storm before. In 2005 he was an author of a widely quoted paper that suggested most major media organizations had a liberal bias. —Goldie Blumenstyk

Comments

1. I believe that the “edged up” refers to the change from 2.2% of the entering class consisting of minority candidates becoming 4.7%. Those numbers, while promising, still do not come anywhere close to reflecting the demographic proportions in the draw area for the University. Mr. Ruckus, how exactly does this connect to Republican politics? It was not clear from your post.

   — Quantjockey    Sep 1, 08:52 PM    #

2. What’s the latest on Gustav, anoyone? Palin fiasco? Some real news?

   — Nokeke    Sep 1, 11:21 PM    #

3. Why play semantics? Look at the numbers, observe they more than doubled, and draw your own conclusions. Kudos to Dr. Groseclose.

   — TRB    Sep 2, 08:36 AM    #

4. Yeah. Kudos to Dr. Groseclose. Heaven forbid we have too many blacks studying at a prestigious state university.

   Obvious sarcasm aside, I fail to see what exactly is wrong w/ having a whopping 203 black students out of nearly 5,000. It merely shows we have a long, long way to go to close that gap.

   — carlos    Sep 2, 09:03 AM    #

5. Oh, lordie, those underqualified blacks! They’re getting over on us again.

   — MLK    Sep 2, 09:07 AM    #

6. I suspect there is also a Affirmative Action like admissions tilt for the football team. Did you look a the number of black people on the field playing against Tennessee last night? Those black people working for no pay, earning money for the school. Now, they expect admissions to a university that they work at? Whats next a black president?

   — Darrin    Sep 2, 09:09 AM    #

7. For every student who gains admissions because of race, there is another student who was denied admission because of race. Racial inequality cannot be overcome through racist measures.

   — Smith    Sep 2, 09:32 AM    #

8. Smith: Affirmative Action did not rear its unequal head in a vacuum. It evolved in our society as a response to widespread discrimination based on some Americans’ skin color, ethnic background and “race.” People of color did not create Affirmative Action. So why is the stigma always placed on ethnic minorities? Well-meaning “white” politicians created it to try to make up for past and, yes, ongoing societal discrimination. If efforts like this are discontinued, can you guarantee that the kind of majority-v-minority discrimination that created it will cease? Has our society truly evolved to a perfect, color-blind democracy? Just a question. I’m not saying I agree that AA is the right way to go as we move forward.

   — Deborah    Sep 2, 09:56 AM    #

9. Who is going to do something about all the underqualified white students?

   — GL    Sep 2, 10:07 AM    #

10. Ever since Prop 209 passed in Ca., UC administrators have been looking for ways to subvert it- comprehensive review or holistic review are merely the buzzwords for illegal affirmative action. No one disputes that there are categories of students (athletes for example) who get admissions’ breaks. Nor is anyone suggesting that Ca. public and private hs are created equal. The problem in Ca. is that there are simply not enough qualified non-Asian minorities graduating from Ca. hs’ to compete for slots at the most prestigious UC schools. But Californians have told college administrators that they will not abide AA as an answer. If officials continue to subvert the law, they should be prosecuted.

    — Patrick Mattimore    Sep 2, 10:09 AM    #

11. I’ve seen the “working for no pay, earning money for the school” assertion in relation to college athletics before, but am unpersuaded by it—especially in revenue-generating sports. Whether one believes that a university should be offering athletic training or not, the fact remains that football players at a place like Tennessee are the beneficiaries of the most intensive, and expensive, training imaginable to prepare them for their chosen careers—in this case, high-paying jobs in the NFL. (And before somebody reminds me that few will ultimately achieve their goal, the same could be said of many aspirant academics in the country’s Ph.D. programmes, many of whom are paying out of their own pockets for the privilege.) If would-be pro football or basketball players had to pay normal commercial rates for all the coaching, physiotherapy, dietetics, equipment etc. that they currently receive for free, the cost would be prohibitive. Nowhere else in the academy—not even in the case of Rhodes Scholar candidates—is the university so heavily invested in the student’s professional success.

    When student-athletes who make it to the professional leagues (or the teams that hire them) are required to reimburse the taxpayers whose funds paid for their lengthy and costly apprenticeship, I’ll be willing to entertain complaints of “exploitation.” But not until then.

    — Gustave    Sep 2, 10:11 AM    #

12. Opponents of affirmative action have two new words to use if they will use them: Sarah Palin. Hillary Clinton supporters should be outraged at that McCain hire.

    — Jack    Sep 2, 10:21 AM    #

13. Ruckus – read more carefully! The change in policy was in 2006. The jump in black enrollment was between Fall 2006 and 2007, as one would expect. Now, from 2007 to 2008, the increase was relatively smaller. That is why it is referred as “edging up”. Got nothing to do with real or imagined bias.

    — TS    Sep 2, 10:32 AM    #

14. Anyway, they’re unqualified to study in such great universities. I teach Black student at minority institution, OMG, horrible, they are very very weak.

    — Jk    Sep 2, 11:30 AM    #

15. Just because the admissions numbers for Blacks are up does not mean that race is being used in admissions. Everyone is only looking at the numerator here – you also have to look at the denominator: were there more applications overall from Blacks and other minorities. Secondly, there are many ways to produce more diversity in a class than just adding race to the equation – all of them legal and valid. Let’s stop jumping to conclusions here without the right data.

    — DL    Sep 2, 11:35 AM    #

16. JK: What a dreadful generalization about black Americans. It is precisely that kind of attitude that created Affirmative Action in the first place. I assume English is not your native language, based on your post. Are you using homegrown prejudice to try to fit in yourself? Is this your way of getting out of a meaningful conversation? How nice that you are enjoying the social advancements brought about by the civil rights movement years before your arrival on these shores.

    — Deborah    Sep 2, 11:56 AM    #

17. JK wrote:

    Anyway, they’re unqualified to study in such great universities. I teach Black student at minority institution, OMG, horrible, they are very very weak.

    I’m sorry JK, but the only thing that is weak here is your grammer. Are you teaching one black student or several students? I really feel for your students.

    — Jk Sep 2, 11:30 AM #

    — D    Sep 2, 11:56 AM    #

18. This “dramatic” doubling is still lower than the 9.6% that blacks comprise of the population in LA County or the 6.7% of the population of the State of CA.

    A holistic review is meant to provide opportunities for students who would be overlooked by conventional measures. In a state with some of the worst schools in the nation in black and Latino communities, it does not surprise me that much of the benefit of such a review would be to high potential African-American students.

    However, organized efforts to prevent a sitting member of a faculty admissions committee for gaining access to data on admissions is problematic and we could create an “us vs. them” mentality on campus.

    — Jarod HM    Sep 2, 12:48 PM    #

19. If you want affirmative action and need diversity at a school, the ONLY way to assure it is to use race in your decision-making process. When the outcome is assessed by race, the input has to be sorted the same way. The current situation in which we try to deny this is idiotic.

    — Al    Sep 2, 01:02 PM    #

20. Wow, have I inadvertently happened into the AOL blog? Why don’t we end the affirmative action argument and talk about reparations? Those who think African Americans are deserving will show your true colors. The Ward Connely’s, Clarence Thomas’, Shelby Steele’s and other blacks suffering from Stockholm Syndrome bedamned. Tim Groseclose is a racist idiot who needs to get a life. And JK? Please identify where and what you “teach” because your stupidity and lack of insight into just why your black students are failing marks you as a big part of the problem. You see failure where those truly committed to the highest ideals of education see potential. You are a pathetic loser and need to be in another profession. Idiot.

    — KA    Sep 2, 01:32 PM    #

21. KA: Shame on you for devolving into name calling. Whatever valid point you made will be read as less valid because you lost your temper.

    — HIED doc    Sep 2, 01:41 PM    #

22. Art,

    You are right. Lets get to the root of the problem not the political one that brings out some pretty nasty arguments.

    — Shocked    Sep 2, 02:15 PM    #

23. In statistics, when did 1 or 2 years ever qualify the data? Disregarding my own preferences for the long-argued affirmative action rulings, I just don’t believe that such limited data can conclude anything definitively.

    Conclusions should not be jumped into so quickly.

    — Derek    Sep 2, 02:45 PM    #

24. 230 students out of nearly 5,000. Come on really?! Is this really an issue? Has anyone ever been to ucla? I got my doctorate there and when I sat outside, an hour or so would go by before I saw another black face. We are not taking over the place.

    I do not know why when the words affirmative action are spoken, the immediate thought by most is that the school went out and grab some dope-dealing, drop-out, gun weilding thugs off some street corner, gave them all full scholarships and told them to go crazy on campus. The truth is that these students were probably the best from their they came from and made the most of every opportunity they were given, no matter how meager. Shouldn’t they be given a chance? 230 out of 5,000, come on really?! Is that what we are upset about? I would have more repect for some of you if you just stood up and said that you just did not want us there and be done with it. This is just sad.

    — PJ    Sep 2, 03:27 PM    #

25. To Professor Groseclose: God forbid we should have a percentage of black students at UCLA that is actually representative of the college-age population! It seems to me that what people like Prof. Groseclose are really all about are keeping minorities out of universities, by pretending that they have equal opportunities to score well on the standardized tests that their universities use, despite the demonstrated lack of validity of these tests.

    — John    Sep 2, 03:30 PM    #

26. Valid points, PJ, but I tend to believe that meritocracy, pure meritocracy, is what we should strive for in college admissions. Thus it would be up to the high schools to prepare the college applicants properly. They certainly aren’t doing this now. When I got my first master’s (in higher education/student development) in 1983, our department would get phone calls from student affairs officials at other universities saying “Oh, we need a black graduate.” Personally, I found this offensive—to be automatically excluded from a candidate search because I wasn’t black. My adviser had told me my master’s thesis was the best he’d ever seen. So what had I put in that effort for? I was not responsible for past racism, and neither were my parents, nor my grandparents.

    — Scott South    Sep 2, 03:44 PM    #

27. Unfortunately, diversity as implemented tends to celebrate and reinforce the concept of race, which is at best an irrational concept. I strongly suspect that in supporting the ballot initiative, the citizens of California would agree. Many of us (myself included) come from diverse backgrounds and resent being pigeonholed in a racial category. We have a very bright man running for President who fits this description, and people who should know better want to tag him with one label or another, I can only assume to assuage their own biases. As a public institution, UCLA, Mr. Groceclose notwithstanding, should be seeking to serve its constituency; namely, the citizenry of California. The institution, for its part, should not be classifying students according to racial criteria, but should be worrying about geographic, economic, and other rational distribution criteria in its student admissions to determine how well it is serving that constituency. And yes, admissions should be meritorious, but rising above one’s circumstances is meritorious. A high SAT is impressive only if it isn’t a function of opportunity. If UCLA’s “holistic” criteria is an attempt to consider the whole individual rather than formulaic factors (SAT and skin color included), I applaud them.

    — CW    Sep 2, 04:46 PM    #

28. Many of the entries above, beginning with the Chronicle piece itself, seem to miss the real issue, which is quite clear and mostly dispassionately presented in Professor Groseclose’s document. Circumstantial evidence exists that suggests that UCLA’s admissions might be illegal. Specifically, applicants aren’t supposed to divulge their race in essays, yet many do, and this might be having a systematic bearing on actual admissions decisions, contrary to California law. The issue is not whether such a systematic effect is a good or bad thing. Collective responsibility for making these judgments lies in governmental institutions and, like it or not, California has spoken, and UCLA and other universities must take the law as given at least in the short run.

    Here are the essential facts pertinent to the real issue. Groseclose was appointed to a university committee whose charge is to oversee undergraduate admissions. (One has to read his report to learn that Groseclose is actually PRO-affirmative-action; few seem to have done so.) In the course of serving his term, he made several requests for data to learn whether there is not only circumstantial but also systematic evidence of illegal implementation of the “holistic process.” Like a good social scientist, he was simply out to investigate a hypothesis by using data instead of anecdotes to inform his beliefs. Yet, various UCLA officials on and off the committee consistently took measures to thwart a committee member’s attempts to learn about the consequences of the admissions policy. The issue that emerges, then, is one of alleged stonewalling by university officials. Groseclose’s report presents facts that seem to me to be significantly obstructive, but reasonable people may disagree with my assessment. It seems, however, that reasonable people should at least read the Groseclose report and reach their assessments based on the available evidence rather than base them on emotional snap judgments about his motives and/or policy predispositions.

    Granted, the alleged stonewalling (or “coverup” as Groseclose calls it) does have implications for actual admissions, and I do not mean to suggest these are unimportant. Still, that’s not really the issue here. The issue is: Should UCLA administrators be allowed to deny access of admissions information to a properly appointed and gemuinely inquisitive faculty committee member who seems simply to be trying to perform his oversight duties? If so, the university’s behavior seems painfully and ironically informative about its true commitment not only to diversity but also to the acquisition of knowledge.

    — Stanley Ford    Sep 2, 04:48 PM    #

29. The real concern in my mind is the administration’s stonewalling on the data.

    — James    Sep 2, 07:16 PM    #

30. The thing about the radical right is that it’s become a tribe of damaged primates, afraid to come down from the trees, spending the entire day picking imaginary nits off of their forearms, stopping only to screech for no good reason. Groseclose, come down from that tree!

    — Brilliant Blonde    Sep 2, 07:28 PM    #

31. The assumption that seems to underlie Professor Groseclose’s analysis (and, I have to say, many of the posts that appear above), is bothersome. UCLA’s whole point in using a holistic admissions review is that traditional one-dimensional admissions criteria may not fully get at what makes for a good admissions decision that will contribute to both the student and the institution. The fact that the new criteria result in more successful minority applicants may just mean that they are right, since the disparity between the number of such applicants matriculating and their density in the general population has been startling (and, even now, remains so). The immediate assumption on some people’s part that the increase means that UCLA must be cheating may say a lot more about the assumer’s view of the natural rightness of things than about any of UCLA’s actions.

    — Atokal    Sep 3, 07:29 AM    #

32. #34.

    While you may be right, the bothersome question is why won’t the admins give up the data. An analysis of the data would help everyone understand whether or not the administration can be trusted or not. The fact that they are withholding the data gives the appearance that there is something they are hiding.

    — James    Sep 3, 09:14 AM    #

33. Regarding the data, I would hope that the UCLA Internal Review Board, that reviews and approves human subjects research independent of the universities administration, is involved. No one applying to UCLA consented to being in his research and applications contain tons of extremely sensitive information. I personally would be upset if I had applied to UCLA and the university handed over my file to this research project.

    — Frank    Sep 3, 09:44 AM    #

34. As #30 points out, the real issue is faculty access to the data in an insitituition where “shared governance” is supposed to operate. Contrary to the suggestion of #36, examination of admissions files by Professor Groseclose would not be reviewable by an IRB since it would fail to qualify as research (contirubtion to generalizable knowledge) under federal guidlines. Professor Groseclose is a member of the faculty committee charged with oversight of admissions, and review of applications is specfically in its charge.

    — perplexed    Sep 3, 12:00 PM    #

35. When student-athletes who make it to the professional leagues (or the teams that hire them) are required to reimburse the taxpayers whose funds paid for their lengthy and costly apprenticeship, I’ll be willing to entertain complaints of “exploitation.”

    I would be willing to bet that “taxpayers” are not footing the bill for college athletics. These programs are usually supported by private money from boosters and corporations at major sports schools.

    — LT at UB    Sep 4, 01:01 AM    #

36. It would be nice to see the number of whites, Asians, Hispanics and Native Americans double and increase in the NBA. Strange how we all accept differences in sports, but we somehow think it does not apply to academics. Part is culture and work ethic, but some people have the genes for fast twitch muscles and others have the genes for good neural networks in their brain and can learn and pick things up must faster. But like the turtle and the hare, you can make up for lack of innate ability with hard work, as Pete Rose showed us in baseball and John Stockton in the NBA.

    — KJJ    Sep 4, 02:24 PM    #

37. <sarcasm>No wonder I see all those black and brown lawyers everytime I go to court, or near the courthouse!</sarcasm>

    — maxmacias    Sep 4, 04:03 PM    #

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