School system says it has not been served with a filing and will \u2018vigorously defend\u2019 its admissions practices<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A newly formed group dedicated to fighting what it calls the covert use of affirmative action in admissions decisions by colleges in the University of California<\/a> system announced on Monday that it was filing a lawsuit, aiming for an injunction to prohibit any consideration of race in student admissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe University of California has not been served with the filing,\u201d a spokesperson for the UC system, Stett Holbrook, said on Tuesday. \u201cIf served, we will vigorously defend our admission practices\u201d Holbrook added. \u201cWe believe this to be a meritless suit that seeks to distract us from our mission to provide California students with a world class education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The consideration of race in college admissions was banned in California in 1996, when voters approved the ballot initiative Proposition 209.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The group behind the suit, Students Against Racial Discrimination<\/a>, was founded by Richard Sander, a professor of law at UCLA, and Tim Groseclose, a professor of economics at George Mason University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although the two professors are the only named members of the \u201cstudents\u201d group, their website says that unnamed students are members. \u201cWe include students (and parents of students) who have been rejected by the UC schools even as classmates with substantially lower academic credentials \u2013 but a more favorable skin pigmentation \u2013 have been accepted,\u201d the site says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The founding members say the group was established in late 2024 to \u201crestore meritocracy in academia\u201d and say that diversity considerations are still being used by UC schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The group\u2019s website points to two recent headlines to suggest that the UC schools \u201cpretend\u201d not to consider race in admissions. One is from a New York Times report<\/a> last August, At M.I.T., Black and Latino Enrollment Drops Sharply After Affirmative Action Ban. That report noted that after the US supreme court\u2019s 2023 decision banning affirmative action, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology saw a sharp drop in the percentage of Black, Hispanic, Native American and Pacific Islander students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n