Regents resolve to end favoritism in UC admissions

SANTA BARBARA NEWS-PRESS

May 17, 1996

Regents resolve to end favoritism in UC admissions

By MARK EVANS ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO-A University of California regents' panel resolved Thursday to halt admissions favoritism at UC's nine campuses saying the "back door considerations," while rare, are a threat to the university's integrity. The 15-member educational policy committee took up the issue following recent published reports suggesting that VIPs had quietly gotten relatives, friends and the children of business partners into UCLA.

In addition, details of an internal report released Thursday said as many as a dozen students each year, most of them at UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC Davis, have used high-profile connections to their advantage.

Regents said they wanted to as sure the public-and UC's roughly 72,000 undergraduate applicants each year-that such string-pulling was intolerable at the public university.

"I think that it is extremely important that we respond publicly and show that we do oppose these kinds of back door considerations," Regent Ward Connerly said.

Lt. Gov. Gray Davis also called for "abolition of the special VIP structure," and said, "The most import ant thing a university can do is be open and straightforward about its admission practices."

Still, the panel left lingering questions, and UC officials planned to lay down more specific guidelines after Provost C. Judson King releases a final report on the matter Monday.

Among the remaining questions: Should a UC regent, or an elected official, ever be permitted to lobby for a student's admission? Should UC retain the right to admit, for example, the child of a prominent UC donor as long as that student's admission doesn't displace another's?

UC President Richard Atkinson, for one, argued that in "extremely rare" cases, there needs to be "some slight degree of flexibility where the chancellor (of a particular campus) has the ability to act on his or her own." He said he would offer his own details on such a plan later.

Regent Roy T. Brophy said he frequently recommends students he thinks are worthy of a UC education. He didn't plan to change that practice.

At least one regent remained publicly skeptical.

Regent Ralph Carmona said the majority of VIP requests for favors were "under the table sort of stuff," made verbally without a paper trail to follow.

Carl Gutierrez-Jones,

Department of English

University of California

Santa Barbara, CA 93106

E-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu