Discrimination at UC Berkeley

Dennis Hayashi and Dale Shimaski of the Japanese-American Citizens League, in their letter (July 4) replying to my June 10 Commentary article on “Who Gets In?” to Berkeley, make a point that deserves clarification.

They challenge my suggestion that Berkeley’s new admissions preference based on socioeconomic status (SES) was “part of a deal between Berkeley policy-makers and Asian-American leaders. . . .” This cannot be true, they say, because “the SES policy was created by a committee of faculty members, openly debated in the Academic Senate and ratified by the entire senate membership.”

It can still be true. The “Berkeley policy-makers” to whom I referred included the faculty committee that created the SES policy. That committee’s recommendations, in its own words, “bear the imprint of extensive consultation with interested parties both on and off campus.”

Berkeley’s Academic Senate approved the SES policy after being advised by the senate chairman to “accept the report as it stands. . . .” Voting to do that were the 50-plus faculty present at the meeting, not the “entire senate membership.”

STEPHEN R. BARNETT

Professor of Law

UC Berkeley