Ward Connerly has suggested the board of regents conduct an
external audit of the effects of comprehensive review on admissions
policy. This is not surprising.
Comprehensive review, used to admit the freshman class of
2002-03, allows the university to look at things such as personal
challenges and life experience, which often define a person’s
potential better than academic statistics alone, under the new
admission policy. Private schools, which generally do a better job
of assembling intellectually interactive classes than does the UC,
have been using such criteria for decades.
Connerly and his supporters are considering an external audit of
comprehensive review despite the fact the only class admitted under
this policy hasn’t even started college academics. The
regents sponsoring this audit want it to determine comprehensive
review’s effectiveness and whether it complies with
Proposition 209, which banned affirmative action in California.
They believe the UC will be vulnerable to lawsuits if the program
is out of line with anti-affirmative action law.
It is no coincidence Connerly is spearheading the audit campaign
““ Proposition 209 was born, after all, from his authoring of
SP-1 and SP-2, which banned affirmative action at the UC. Many
regard comprehensive review a close, legal alternative to
affirmative action because it doesn’t rely on race but still
helps admit more minorities with its emphasis on life
challenges.
Moreover, comprehensive review is philosophically at odds with
the Racial Privacy Initiative Connerly so adamantly sponsors.
Comprehensive review will likely increase racial diversity, while
the RPI, which would take out references to race in applications,
doesn’t believe diversity should be an issue, and would help
smother it.
Comprehensive review is the responsibility of the Academic
Senate, not politically driven regents. The process brings
personality to an otherwise cold and numerical admissions system;
it has the potential to greatly improve the makeup of future
classes attending the UC. To let this happen, though, admissions
criteria decisions, and the review of them, must be left up to
educators, not politicians. Sadly, this might not happen until
Connerly’s term is mercifully over in January 2005.