An op-ed by Lydiette De Jesus in today’s (UCLA) Daily Bruin says that any claims that her school is racially biased in its admissions are “ignorant” and “perpetuate racism.”
How could it even be true, she asks, since California’s Proposition 209 ended affirmative action in the state back in 1996?
At issue is a poster that was hung up at the school last week which “brazenly argued” that “UCLA violates Prop 209 to discriminate against White and Asian students in favor of Blacks.”
“If this was a poster on a wall that everyone ignored,” she writes, “there would be no issue. However, there are a large number of people that accept these beliefs as truth, which damages the state of race relations in this country. These beliefs are incorrect and need to be more forcefully refuted.”
But throughout her piece, the only thing De Jesus offers to prove the falsity of what the poster said is, well, the mere fact that Prop 209 was passed:
With the end of affirmative action in 1996, institutions such as UCLA are prohibited from giving preferential treatment based on race. The argument of affirmative action opponents is supported by the assumption that African-American students did not deserve to be admitted to UCLA but instead were illegally preferred because of their race.
MORE: Whistleblower professor exposes race-based ‘cheating’ at UCLA
The poster argues that even though affirmative action is illegal in California, UCLA has found a loophole and is accepting too many African Americans. It argues that 33 percent less African-American students would be accepted if admissions were fair.
However, this argument strongly depends on a sense of arrogance, entitlement and superiority. It implies that African-American students who were accepted to UCLA do not actually deserve an education there.
The sole linked citation in her article goes to a piece by The College Fix’s own Dominic Lynch — and it contradicts her contentions.
Lynch had interviewed UCLA Professor Tim Groseclose who ended up writing a book about his school’s alleged efforts to get around Prop 209 restrictions after, in his own words, the school chancellor “showed up at [our faculty oversight] committee – and this was remarkable, I never heard of this before – and he lobbied us to change the admissions system.”
“I never would have written anything at all about admissions in college if I hadn’t been on this committee,” the professor said.
His book, Cheating: An Insider’s Report on the Use of Race in Admissions at UCLA, was completed only after having to file a Public Records Act in California to obtain the “thousand random admissions files” he had originally petitioned from UCLA.
UCLA had refused his request. Wonder why it did that?
Read the full Daily Bruin op-ed.
MORE: 76% of Americans oppose race-based admissions
MORE: Despite ‘Fisher,’ vast majority oppose race preferences in college admissions
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