UC Law Schools Face Discrimination Investigation

Adding to the controversy over the University of California’s ban on affirmative action, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights confirmed Monday that it is investigating allegations that the admissions policies at UC’s three law schools are racially discriminatory.

In a letter sent late last week to UC President Richard C. Atkinson and the three law school deans, the director of the department’s San Francisco office says it is responding to a formal complaint--filed in March--that alleged that UC’s ban on affirmative action in graduate student admissions unfairly favors whites and men.

Based in part on the allegation that white students were admitted in greater proportions than blacks or Latinos, the civil rights office “has sufficient information to initiate an investigation,” the letter said. The complaint alleged that one in four white applicants was admitted to UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law, for example, contrasted with one in 10 Latinos and one in 20 blacks.

The office did not find sufficient cause to investigate gender discrimination.

Representatives of the coalition of Latino, African American and women’s groups that filed the complaint welcomed the investigation Monday.

“This is a significant step,” said Joe Jaramillo, staff attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “It’s federal recognition that there is a problem with minority admissions at the UC in its first post-affirmative action admissions cycle.”

This year, for the first time in decades, UC admitted students to its five medical schools, three law schools and 600 other graduate programs without considering race, ethnicity or gender. That policy, approved by the UC Board of Regents in 1995, will be extended to undergraduate admissions in the spring 1998 semester.

UC officials said Monday that they would cooperate with federal investigators.

“We just want to reiterate the university’s continuing effort to maintain diversity in the university and the law schools,” said Terry Lightfoot, a UC spokesman. “We will work toward that goal under both the regents’ policy and the law.”

This is not the first time that Boalt Hall has been investigated by the Education Department’s civil rights office. An investigation in 1992 found that the school was practicing reverse discrimination by reviewing and sorting applicants based in part on race and by keeping waiting lists by ethnic group.

At that time, the federal agency found that factors aimed at diversifying the student body must not be limited to ethnic background alone. The law school changed some of its policies.

The more recent complaint, by contrast, was prompted by the opposite scenario. The March complaint alleged that ethnicity and gender now were about the only supplemental factors to be banned from consideration in admissions.

Although not directly challenging the elimination of affirmative action, the complaint questioned the remaining selection criteria, such as the weight given to grades and scores from “culturally biased” standardized tests.

The complaint said Boalt Hall, for instance, gives added weight to the grade-point average of applicants who attended elite Eastern colleges but discounts grades from predominantly black Howard University or Cal State L.A., which has high Latino enrollment.

The complaint also alleged that various nonacademic “whole person” factors--an applicant’s extracurricular achievements or whether a parent is an alumnus of the school--significantly favor white and male applicants. The complaint said the schools should also consider the achievements of women or minorities in persevering over discrimination.

The complaint asked the Clinton administration to investigate and withhold federal dollars, if necessary, to ensure that UC complies with federal civil rights laws.

Federal investigators will begin by analyzing admissions practices at the law schools, but officials said they may expand the inquiry to include other schools as admissions data become available.

Admissions to UC law schools have been spotlighted in recent months as the impact of the affirmative action ban has become apparent. At Boalt Hall, for instance, only 14 black students were admitted to this fall’s entering class. And none of those have opted to attend. As a result, the entering class will have only one black student--one who was admitted last year and deferred entrance.