Monday, January 13, 1997
GRAD SCHOOLS:
Complaint claims diverse work force unattainable without student
diversityBy Brooke Olson
Daily Bruin Staff
The UC Board of Regents’ ban on affirmative action was
challenged Friday when two civil rights groups filed a formal
complaint aimed at retaining race and gender preferences in
University of California graduate school admissions.
Filed with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Contract
Compliance Programs in San Francisco, the complaint seeks to tie
graduate school admissions to the university’s obligation to follow
equal opportunity hiring rules as a federal contractor.
Lawyers from both the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored Peoples and the Mexican American Legal Defense and
Education Fund claimed that graduate admissions are equivalent to
preselecting students for jobs as research assistants, teaching
assistants, residents and interns.
"There’s a strong connection between hiring and the admissions
process in general," the complaint said. "In some departments,
they’re virtually indistinguishable."
Without a diverse student body, employers will be unable to
obtain a diverse work force, the plaintiffs claimed.
The UC system receives $1.3 billion a year in federal grants and
contracts. Like all federal contractors, it is obligated to
maintain goals and timetables for hiring women and minorities.
In July 1995, the regents adopted a resolution eliminating the
consideration of race and gender in the admissions process.
Although the new policy is effective for undergraduate students
entering in the 1998 Spring quarter, the resolution was implemented
for all graduate students entering in Fall 1997.
The date for graduates is earlier in part because graduate
admissions is a decentralized process affecting fewer students than
at the undergraduate level.
The complaint asks the Labor Department to take immediate steps
to halt this year’s graduate admissions process, which is poised to
select about 9,600 students for UC’s five medical schools, three
law schools and 600 other graduate programs.
"Unless restrained from conducting its admission system in the
absence of an affirmative action program, the UC will operate a
program for graduate student employment that discriminates against
minorities and women," the complaint said.
But Susan Thomas, a UC attorney, said in an interview with the
Los Angeles Times that officials believe the new graduate
admissions policy does not run afoul of any federal rules.
"As we implemented the regents’ decision on affirmative action,
we did a very careful review of our commitments as a federal
contractor to make sure our programs were in complete compliance,"
she said.
If the Office of Contract Compliance pursues Friday’s complaint
and finds the university system lacking, it could require UC
officials to adopt an affirmative action plan, or eventually move
to disqualify the university as a federal contractor.
In addition to this complaint, the regents’ decision is also
being challenged in the court fight over Proposition 209, which
prohibits the use of race and gender in state hiring, contracting
and admissions. The California ballot initiative was approved by
voters last November.
Currently, implementation of Proposition 209 has been blocked by
a federal court on the grounds that the initiative may be
unconstitutional.
The civil rights attorneys seeking to retain affirmative action
in graduate admissions said they were encouraged by the federal
court ruling and by the Clinton administration’s decision to join
the legal attack on Proposition 209.
The Office of Contract Compliance Programs was established in
1965 to enforce then President Lyndon B. Johnson’s order that
federal contractors have affirmative action programs to ensure
equal opportunity for women, minorities and workers with
disabilities.
With reports from Daily Bruin wire services