Is U.C.L.A. Illegally Using Race-Based Affirmative Action in Admissions? Steven D. Levitt’s friend and co-author, Tim Groseclose, a professor of political science at U.C.L.A., thinks so:
Groseclose was a member of U.C.L.A.’s Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Relations With Schools until yesterday, when he resigned from the committee in a very public way and released an 89-page report documenting what he calls “malfeasance” and an “accompanying cover-up.”The gist of Groseclose’s allegations is that Proposition 209 prohibits public institutions in California from considering race, sex, or ethnicity, but that U.C.L.A. nonetheless uses such information in admissions decisions.
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Indeed, it seems that the adoption of the “holistic” approach to judging applications was designed precisely to accomplish that goal, as David Leonhardt has written about previously.Statistics suggest the holistic approach did lead to a big jump in enrollment by African-Americans at U.C.L.A., which was accompanied by a sharp decline in the S.A.T. scores of the African-American students admitted.