Our coalition including American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) is very concerned that the University of California (UC) increased the number of new Hispanic-American students and African-American students for Fall 2016 by about 25%. Such a dramatic change in the numbers of only two groups suggests the possibility that race and ethnicity are being used as a key factor in admission, violating the law. We have requested application and admissions data, including GPA, from the Office of the President of UC for our investigation.
Unless the academic standards of both Hispanics American students and African American students changed coincidentally and substantially in a miraculous manner this year, we have reason to suspect this big increase of 25% could be mainly due to favorable treatment of these two ethnic groups. College admissions based on race or racial discrimination is unconstitutional and unacceptable! Please voice your objection to UC.
Proponents of Affirmative Action keep using the term “equality” as an excuse for college admissions based on race. But as Frank Lee, president of Organization for Justice and Equality, maintains, “Equality actually means that nobody is favored or degraded due to race. Otherwise, it is inequality.” Equal opportunity is good to all.
Diversity is also just an excuse. For example, can the Olympics Games pick the winners based on racial diversification but not merits or excellence?
The need to take care of the poor or disadvantaged students is real, but if they are using these criteria as a proxy for race, they we would expect to see a rise in all groups admitted since there are poor and disadvantaged students in all groups.
Freedom does not give us the right to discriminate. The use of an immutable trait such as race to admit a student to UC is definitely wrong.
Ward Connerly, president of American Civil Rights Institute, states, “This surprising change in the admissions numbers of a single group is suspicious. We will carefully research the numbers when UC provides them, to determine what may have occurred. Proposition 209, passed by the people of California in 1996, made it explicitly unconstitutional to grant preferential treatment in education based on race, color, ethnicity or national origin. We are vigilant in our effort to ensure UC and all schools in California comply with this constitutional requirement that safeguards equal treatment before the law.”
To conclude, we must continue to voice strong objection to college admissions based on race or racial discrimination. UC must provide us with the relevant statistics for Fall 2016 admissions soon. If there is any evidence showing preferential treatment to certain ethnic groups, our coalition will use every effort to take appropriate action in stopping it for the betterment of our society!