Update (11/14): Roger Clegg expertly breaks down Barack Obama’s interview on “affirmative action.” That’s race preferences, to you and me. I’ll appear on NPR’s News & Notes today around 1 p.m. ET to discuss UCS’s comprehensive review proposal and other topics.
Clarification: The UC System has a two-tiered approach in admitting students. First, they must be eligible, based on grades, scores, and a set of required courses, to enter the UC System. Second, once a student is deemed eligible to enter the system, comprehensive review of his file determines on which campus he’s placed (Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, etc.). This is the selection portion of the process. The Board of Admissions proposes to extend comprehensive review to the eligibility portion, de-emphasizing grades, scores, and required courses. Again, despite the convoluted explanation in the 17-page proposal, UC is attempting to get around state law by factoring in an applicant’s race. From the proposal (emphasis in original):
BOARS recommends that the present practice of providing a guarantee of admission to all students who meet a narrow set of criteria based on course-taking, GPA, test taking, and test scores be replaced. The new policy would guarantee not admission, but consideration for admission through a comprehensive review at each campus of application, to all students who meet certain basic criteria of academic achievement.
Sounds good in theory, doesn’t it? But wait and see what happens. Suddenly, the number of black and hispanic students will rise, but the grade and score gaps will remain the same. If comprehensive review is applied equally across the board to all who apply, why would it disproportionately benefit blacks and hispanics (as I predict it will) and not, say, Asian students with high grades and scores (or low grades and scores) with hard-luck stories of their own? If applied to all students equally, wouldn’t a higher number of white students who would not have made the cut under the old criteria be admitted under the proposed relaxed standard?
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In 1996, 54 percent of California voters passed a measure that outlawed the use of race in public hiring, contracting, and admissions. Ward Connerly, former University of California regent and man behind the proposition, knew that some schools would try to get around the law by using other factors as a proxy for race.
The University of California System (UCS) has come up with such a proxy. Under “comprehensive review,” admissions officers will consider a student’s “extracurricular achievements, community service and handicaps overcome,” in addition to grades and scores. (Source – sign in with username sacbee4949 and password sacbee)
Download a PDF copy of the 17-page Proposal to Reform UCS Freshman Eligibility Policy.
Now, if this worked the way it’s supposed to work, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. If every single student who applied to the UCS was judged under comprehensive review equally, the process would be fair, for lack of a better word. But that’s not what’s going to happen. So-called comprehensive review, much like the ridiculously-named “holistic review” adopted by UCLA and the University of Wisconsin System, simply is an underhanded and not-so-clever way to admit lesser qualified black students.
Think about it. If most people applying to the UCS system are white and Asian, whites and Asians would benefit the most from comprehensive review, yes? If you relaxed standards for all applicants, more whites and Asians would be admitted. I explain it all here, via Charles Murray (You must use the same rules by which European figures and events were included…).
But here’s the sleight of hand: Admissions officers will use a heavy hand when applying comprehensive review to black students and a much lighter hand when applying it to others, especially Asians. The goal is to maintain or increase the percentage of “minorities,” and that just wouldn’t happen if standards are dropped for all applicants regardless of race.
I don’t care how cleverly someone tries to explain “comprehensive” and “holistic” review to you, don’t believe it. These policies merely are ill-fitting disguises for skin color preferences.
(Hat tip: Discriminations)
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