Time for Answers, UC
Public Records Request Submitted
Nearly 30 years ago, California voters approved Proposition 209, a state constitutional amendment that banned preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in state hiring, contracting, and admissions.
But mounting evidence shows that the state’s University of California system has systematically violated that state law in order to boost Latino and black admissions, even in admissions to its prestigious medical schools.
In face of these strongly corroborated allegations, the UC system has – at best – prevaricated on the matter of whether it illegally uses race and ethnicity as part of its admissions process.
Are Asian kids pushed aside? Are white kids ignored? Are black kids minimized and misplaced? Are Hispanic kids either ignored or overly accelerated?
All bright students can do well at a UC school – but can all bright kids get in? And are they competing on an intellectually level playing field?
To try to answer those questions, a public records access request (PRA) has been submitted to both the overall UC system and UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine.
To begin, the PRA (in italics, the background for the questions in bold) states:
“It does appear that the system engages in systemic and widespread admissions manipulation based on the race/ethnicity of the applicant. In some cases, this leads to the admission of some that may be qualified, in others it leads to the denial of admission to those that are clearly qualified.”
To that end, (we) formally request the following information:
· The ethnic/gender make-up of the matriculating undergraduate class of 1995 for each campus.
· The ethnic/gender make-up of graduate-level matriculates of 1995 for each campus.
· For both graduate and undergraduate students, the degree completion rates using the same race/gender metric.
The above are benchmark-setting questions, to create an admissions comparison pre-Prop 209, a constitutional amendment passed by voters to strictly forbid race-based governmental decisions.
· In a similar vein, I formally request the identical information for the matriculating classes of 2000, 2005, and 2010.
· I also request the same information – year-by-year, campus-by campus, graduate and undergraduate – for each class starting in 2017 until current.
This request is to define the differences in admission rates – numerous complaints have suggested that the UC system roughly followed the rules of Prop 209 until about 2006.
As to UCLA Geffen School of Medicine specifically, the questions are as follows:
· A detailed description of the admission process of the school, including but not limited to whether or not the iDiverse program exists, the weight placed on the results of applicants’ interviews with faculty, whether or not the school considers it a “minority-serving institution” and how that impacts admissions and the overall administrative budget.
iDiverse was(is?) a program to create fellowship “tracks” for only certain racial demographics, additionally, a federal designation of “minority -serving institution” opens up a number of grant opportunities and a possible way to “weight” certain applicants differently. Each of the UC campuses declares itself a “minority-serving institution” in one way or another and the concept is further broken down by specific race.
· I also formally request the employment/task status of Dr. Jennifer Lucero, whether or not she was disciplined for past reported actions, and whether or not she remains part of the admissions process.
Dr. Lucero is known for allegedly abusively demanding minority students who may not actually be qualified to be admitted to the UCLA med school.
For example, from a published report last year:
In 2021, a Black candidate for admission was being reviewed and, due to the person’s tests scores and such, it did not appear the candidate was up to snuff (btw, Geffen is/was one of the most difficult med schools to get into with an acceptance rate below 2%.)
Lucero did not seem to care:
When an admissions officer voiced concern about the candidate, the two people said, the dean of admissions (Lucero) exploded in anger.
"Did you not know African-American women are dying at a higher rate than everybody else?" Lucero asked the admissions officer, these people said. The candidate's scores shouldn't matter, she continued, because "we need people like this in the medical school."
· I also request the employment status of the school’s “activist(s) in residence.”
Geffen has a program that pays “activists” to teach/perform/yell at students in order to make them less, um, racist:
This approach seems to go hand-in-hand with the school’s recent problems with antisemitism and absurd DEI efforts. For example, first year med students have taken courses like:
History and Legacies of Immigration and Imperialism
Anti-Settler Colonialism/Indigenous Health
Disability Justice at the Intersections: Carceral Ableism, Medicine, and Racial Capitalism
One particular “A-in-R” drew national attention:
Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia called on the medical students to pray to “mama earth,” called medicine “white science,” and led students in ‘Free Palestine” chants. By the way, Gray-Garcia is a “formerly unhoused, incarcerated poverty scholar, revolutionary journalist, lecturer, poet, visionary, teacher, single mama of Tiburcio, daughter of a houseless, disabled, indigenous mama Dee.” And, fun fact, she’s white, though she tends to wear masks a lot. Wonder why.
· I also request the status of the SHRE classes, whether or not they still offered and/or if they remain mandatory.
SHRE is short for “Structural Racism and Health Equity” and such classes, like Gray-Garcia “taught.” were and/or still are required for first year students.
· I also request the first year overall “bench test” results going back to 2010.
“Bench tests” are – in a nutshell, annual tests to ensure basic knowledge. The scores for first year students have reportedly fallen dramatically over the past few years.
· I also request the annual fee charged to students broken out by race/ethnicity.
This question revolves around the “holistic” approach to admissions. Instead of being a relatively strict, knowledge/test score/standard interview system, Geffen (and every other UC school) allows for more nebulous determinations to be made by admissions staff. In theory, the idea was to look at the entire student and go beyond test scores, which could be a positive. Sadly, though, “holistic admissions” have been used to quietly and secretly tip the racial scales –. hence Harvard University’s loss in the United States Supreme Court over the issue.
· I also request any data regarding the sperate admissions “tracks” available only to minority students – percentages, average test scores, completion of degree rates, etc.
This question addresses the issue of internal conversations, intimidations, diversity goals, etc. that may not be readily available to the public.
The request was made last week. The system responded with a standard boilerplate letter referencing time and financial issues (PRA’a may not be free if significant staff time is taken up and/or large amount of photocopying is called for) and the need to determine which records are “responsive” to the request or out-of-bounds for personnel, legal, and privacy issues.
The system said it will have an initial response to the request by March 24.
That being said, in a separate response to more general questions, the UC system stated categorically it does not discriminate on the basis of race:
“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. We stand by our admission policies and our record of expanding access for all qualified students.”
One final odd note on the formal PRA response – it stated the UC system has “no central repository for all University records.”
That is such a confounding statement – the UC system spends about $52 billion dollars a year - that it is probably true.
The UC system said it will provide an initial response by the close of business (California time) Monday.
Stay tuned.
Note – if you have any “inside” information, please feel free to email me at planbuckley@gmail.com . Your confidentiality is assured.