Clear UC Policy on Admission Appeals Urged

Seeking to protect the integrity of the University of California admissions system, high-ranking officials said Monday that the nine-campus system should establish a clear and well-publicized process to equitably handle appeals from students who are rejected.

UC Provost C. Judson King, who is overseeing the university’s in-house inquiry into VIP admissions, told a Senate Committee that a new appeals procedure appears warranted, based on his preliminary assessment of reports from various campuses.

“Inquiries and recommendations [on behalf of prospective students] should be handled according to established policies and procedures,” King told a state Senate committee.

But, he added, these requests “should not be given undue importance or weight because of the special position or stature of the individual presenting the recommendation.”

Officials said the current admissions appeals process is not publicized and is handled in a variety of ways at UC campuses.

But King said officials have shown considerable responsibility in the screening of prospective students, so UC should not hastily undertake any major overhaul. The provost is scheduled to submit his report to President Richard C. Atkinson before next month’s meeting of the Board of Regents.

The Senate Select Committee on Higher Education has conducted two hearings into whether politicians, UC officials and donors have access to a private preference system through the campuses and the university’s government affairs office in Sacramento.

During Monday’s hearing, Sen. Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco), a member of the panel, said he plans to introduce a joint resolution asking legislators, statewide elected officials and regents to abide by an agreement “not to ask the University of California to give special consideration to any applicant under any circumstance.”

In an interview, Kopp said “it would save regents and legislators a lot of time and disappointed constituents,” adding that he is optimistic such a proposal would win support in the Legislature. “That will end it,” Kopp said.

Other legislators, including committee Chairman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), said they are also considering similar proposals.

Hayden and the university launched their own inquiries last month in the wake of a Times investigation that determined that nearly 1,300 requests were made at UCLA by hundreds of public officeholders, donors and other prominent boosters since 1980 on behalf of undergraduate applicants. More than 200 of the VIP applicants were admitted after they had been initially rejected or coded for denial, confidential records show.

UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young testified that there were some “backdoor admissions” but denied there was any organized system to provide special admissions.

Young elaborated on how his office fields admissions inquiries. Most of these requests, he said, are made to the Westwood campus in writing by people he does not know. These are granted the same kind of review as the VIP requests monitored by the university, Young said.

In addition, the chancellor said, he responds to some telephone calls regarding admissions. “You respond to those that you believe for one reason or another it is particularly important to respond to. And I guess in some respects that is a kind of a preferential process. . . .

“Now, I believe it is important for us to be responsive to the public generally. I believe it is especially important for us to be responsive to people who believe they have made contributions to the university of one kind or another,” including legislators, alumni and regents who support the university.

“I believe that if we don’t respond in helpful ways to such people, they’ll wonder why we don’t have any respect for what they do or wonder why we don’t repay what they give in kind.”

At the hearing, some questions revolved around the role of the university’s government relations office in Sacramento.

Under a Public Records Act request from The Times, the university’s lobbying office last month released documents showing that more than 1,000 requests from 114 state legislators and numerous other public officials, including Gov. Pete Wilson and former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, were fielded by the office.

On Monday, University Vice President William Baker told Hayden’s committee: “It is true in a few isolated cases over a long time period--and to the best of my knowledge, only on behalf of students who were regularly admissible--that our office here [in Sacramento] has advocated on occasion for a particular [student].”

Hayden asked university officials about forms, which they kept to track admissions inquiries, that noted the importance of the inquiry to the VIP requester and to the university.

Stephen A. Arditti, director of the governmental relations office, responded by saying he was unaware that his office kept such detailed information. “That is a form that has been Xeroxed and Xeroxed . . . for a long time,” Arditti said.

Like Provost King, Arditti emphasized the need for a well-publicized appeals process that would create a “level playing field” for all applicants.

The hearing was enlivened when Hayden was scolded by one of his senior colleagues, Sen. Alfred Alquist (D-San Jose). Alquist said that as the former chairman of the Senate Budget Committee his requests to UC on behalf of constituents “received special attention.”

Critics of UC, he said, are “totally out of touch with reality. . . . Money talks and people with money have more influence than those that don’t.”

Times staff writer Ralph Frammolino in Los Angeles contributed to this article.