Regent’s e-mail incites board

University officials are divided over an e-mail written by UC
Board of Regents Chairman John Moores which suggests the University
of California is violating state law in its admissions process and
calls for an independent review of UC admissions.

In the e-mail dated March 25, Moores said the university may be
considering race and gender when it admits students and that it has
withheld several “secret studies” from the regents that
would indicate this practice.

Moores said he feels an independent party should review
university admissions because UC personnel “have demonstrated
a continuing bias in the manner.”

“They seem to have an agenda with respect to outcomes,
rather than attempting to be objective in studying and interpreting
data,” Moores wrote.

Some university officials have criticized Moores for requesting
an independent review, saying the two groups currently studying
admissions are more than adequate and that the university is not
hiding information from the regents.

“There is no evidence whatsoever that the UC has been
anything but forthcoming and honest in its release of information
about admissions,” said George Blumenthal, vice chairman of
the Academic Senate.

Keith Stolzenbach, faculty chairman of the Academic
Senate’s admissions committee, said he felt an independent
review would be “a waste of time.”

“When you combine what the system-wide committee does and
now the study group the president appointed, I feel that these are,
though not independent, honest reviews,” he said.

Some, like Regent Velma Montoya, said Moores’ call for an
independent review would be warranted if questions still linger
after the two committees finalize their reports.

“I would like to see what the further research tells
us,” Montoya said, adding that UC President Robert Dynes has
even suggested further study of admissions might be necessary.

Tracy Davis, an assistant to Moores and former student regent,
said Moores’ request for an independent review is a practice
any private business would engage in if its policies were
questioned.

“So that your findings are believable and unbiased, you
have someone outside those directly involved with the issue do the
study,” she said.

Davis also said Moores’ e-mail was not a formal request
for an independent review, but more of a way to sound out the
regents on whether they would support it.

Matt Murray, the student representative to the board, said he
would want to know how an independent review would be funded and
whether student privacy would be protected before he would consider
such a step.

Moores provoked a furor over UC admissions in October when he
released a report which showed UC Berkeley had admitted thousands
of students with relatively low SAT scores and rejected hundreds
more with high scores. A review of admissions at UCLA showed a
similar trend.

The report’s findings caused some to speculate the
university was considering race and gender in its admissions, a
procedure which was outlawed by Proposition 209 in 1996.

University officials have denied such allegations. They say the
UC’s process of comprehensive review ““ which takes
factors such as an applicant’s life challenges and
extracurricular activities into account ““ explains why
students who did not have the highest SAT scores were admitted.

Some officials, especially UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert
Berdahl, also criticized Moores for remarks he has made in public
which were critical of UC admissions, saying they had damaged the
university’s reputation and offended students with low SAT
scores who had been admitted to Berkeley.

In response to the report released by Moores, Dynes commissioned
a panel of UC officials to investigate admissions procedures. In
addition, the Academic Senate’s Board of Admissions and
Relations with Schools is investigating UC admissions.

The panel appointed by Dynes, which made its report at the last
regents meeting in March, found there were areas where admissions
policy could be improved or clarified, but that there was nothing
to warrant an overhaul in admissions policy or a change in the
UC’s commitment to comprehensive review.

UC officials have praised the thoroughness of the two study
commissions. Stolzenbach said, “Frankly, these review efforts
are much more than most private universities engage in.”

At its March meeting, the board voted 8-6 to reaffirm the
university’s commitment to comprehensive review and to state
that “the views in UC admissions policies expressed by John
Moores, as chairman” do not represent the views of the entire
UC Board of Regents, according to the resolution.

At issue was an editorial Moores wrote for Forbes magazine in
which he attacked the university for its admissions procedures,
saying it used comprehensive review to get around Proposition
209.

Though Moores was outraged by the resolution, his e-mail to the
regents was not written in direct response to it, Davis said.

But in the e-mail, Moores wrote: “I am free to speak my
mind on important matters, and that, moreover, I have an obligation
to be heard when I have reason to believe the public needs to know
about important UC matters.”

Moores wrote the university has withheld incriminating reports
from the regents by classifying them as
“”˜preliminary,’ a “˜work in progress,’
or subject to attorney-client privilege.” University
officials have denied the existence of such “secret
reports.”

Moores also wrote he has been met with “stonewalling,
obfuscation and personal attacks” from university officials
when he attempted to investigate admissions policies.

Some see the e-mail as an attempt by Moores to revive an issue
which has largely fallen off the map for many regents, especially
as the university focuses on other priorities such as dealing with
massive state budget cuts.

“I think the regents would be delighted to have this
admissions issue go onto the back burner,” Blumenthal
said.

But Davis said Moores is not ignoring the budget by questioning
admissions.

“It’s not that (Moores) is saying the budget is a
non-issue. He feels admissions is a component of the budget because
issues of eligibility and who gets admitted are directly relate to
the budget,” she said.