Professor Resigns From Admissions Committee: Claims UCLA Illegally Uses Race Preferences

A growing body of evidence strongly suggests that UCLA is cheating on admissions. Specifically, applicants often reveal their own race on the essay part of their application. This allows admissions staff members to learn the race of applicants; then, in violation of California Proposition 209 (which prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity), readers use such information to evaluate applicants. To the extent that this happens – an extent which can only be assessed with systematic data on admissions – such practices are de facto implementations of racial preferences.

For the past three years I have been a member of UCLA’s Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Relations with Schools (CUARS), the faculty committee responsible for oversight of undergraduate admissions at UCLA. Since late April 2008, I have made several requests for data to investigate the above, as well as other suspicions, including possible discrimination based on religion. Without exception, my requests for data have been denied.

There is considerable evidence that high-ranking administrators and a controlling block of my committee are engaged in a cover-up – they are preventing me and others from obtaining these data and make me complicit in what appears to be illegal activity.

Because I cannot properly conduct the duties with which I am charged as a member of CUARS, I am therefore resigning, in protest, from the committee. To do otherwise would condone and make me complicit in what appears to be illegal activity.

~UCLA Political Science Professor Tim Groseclose, from the summary of his 89-page "Report on Suspected Malfeasance in UCLA Admissions and the Accompanying Cover-Up"

HT: Freakonomics