UC considers comprehensive review audit

By Andrew Edwards
DAILY BRUIN REPORTER
[email protected]

Regent Ward Connerly has suggested the University of California
Board of Regents consider an external audit on the first year of
comprehensive review, in addition to an Academic Senate audit to be
released in the fall.

The internal review is being conducted by a subgroup of the
Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, a committee of the
Academic Senate. In an internal letter to the regents, Connerly
suggested the board consider an outside audit.

Comprehensive review, approved by the regents last year, takes
personal experiences and life challenges into heavier account with
academic achievement in UC admissions. It also ended the UC’s
practice of admitting 50-75 percent of incoming freshmen by
academics alone.

Connerly ““ who voted in favor of comprehensive review
““ made the suggestion after national publications printed
columns criticizing the policy.

In an Aug. 4 column in the Washington Post, UC Berkeley
linguistics professor John McWhorter called comprehensive review a
“canny end run around 1996’s Proposition 209,”
and syndicated columnist Linda Chavez wrote on Aug. 7 that UC
admissions figures show that race was a factor in evaluations of
hardship experienced by applicants to the university.

Connerly said the columns raise critical questions about UC
admissions policy.

“If those statements are true, they are an account …
that the university is engaging in racial discrimination and
violating the constitution of California,” he said.

“If we are sued by somebody because some of our
administration is fudging this thing, or breaking the law,
it’s going to cost us millions of dollars,” he
added.

UC officials believe the columns are an incorrect presentation
of comprehensive review.

“All these articles are based on a misunderstanding of the
whole thing,” said Chand Viswanathan, chair of the Academic
Senate.

“There are lots of people who are objecting to
(comprehensive review), saying this is a backdoor policy for
getting around 209, but that’s not the case,” he
said.

In comprehensive review, “a multitude of various qualities
and factors are taken into account,” Viswanathan said.

UC admissions director Carla Ferri agreed comprehensive review
is not a way to get around the law, and that it is an improvement
over past policy.

“You cannot be reduced to an SAT I score or overall
GPA,” she said.

Connerly did not claim admissions officials had violated Prop.
209, though said “intense pressure” by the state
Legislature on BOARS and UC faculty to increase admissions of
underrepresented students could affect the audit’s
objectivity.

“I don’t think they can give a 100 percent
apolitical view of the issue,” he said.

Viswanathan did not object to an outside audit, but does not
feel it is necessary.

“It never hurts to get an outside opinion,” he said.
“(The faculty committee) will be objective … because the
faculty did not say ‘comprehensive review is great, let’s
accept it blindly.'”

Connerly said he hopes to discuss the issue at the September
regents meeting, though the report is not expected to be ready by
then.

The internal report will “not at all” be completed
by September, Ferri said.