UCLA professor and Asian-American organization sue UC for admissions data

After losing a battle for public records with the State Bar, UCLA law professor Richard Sander is setting his sights on the University of California. In conjunction with a newly formed Asian-American organization, Sander is concerned the university system is showing racial preference in admissions and is consequently discriminating against Asian applicants.

The lawsuit coincides with an ongoing suit brought by Asian Americans challenging Harvard University's consideration of race in admissions.

"The Harvard suit has raised the question of whether Asian Americans are treated fairly when they apply to elite universities," Sander said. "The UC suit is raising that issue for the largest public university in the country."

"The Harvard case is very, very encouraging," added George Shen, a former Republican candidate for the Legislature who founded the co-petitioning Asian American Community Services Center last month.

The petitioners seek anonymized data on applicants and enrollees, including SAT scores, high school GPAs, Advanced Placement courses and scores, race and ethnicity and parents' education and income. Sander and co-petitioner Asian American Community Services Center allege Sander's California Public Records Act request has been blocked by the university for over a year. Sander v. Regents of the University of California, RG18928614 (Alameda Super. Ct., Nov. 15, 2018).

"This is a case about transparency," said Jean-Paul Jassy, attorney for the petitioners. "The UC Regents is a government agency. ... Our position is that as a matter of law, they should disclose."

While Sander's previous case against the State Bar was over bar applicant data, this lawsuit is concerned with undergraduate admissions. The timing of the suit is unrelated to the State Bar case or the Harvard lawsuit, Sander said. Sander's research focuses on his "mismatch hypothesis" that admitting students based on preferences, such as for race, results in poorer student outcomes.

The petitioners fear the University of California is not abiding by Proposition 209, a measure approved in 1996 that prohibits public education agencies from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.

"There was an explicit promise to all of us who came to this country, whether recently or several generations back: You play by the rules, ... you'll be rewarded," Shen said. "The Asian community in general feels that recently, not only are we not being rewarded, we're being penalized for doing too well."

"UC does not consider race, ethnicity or gender in admissions decisions, or any other decisions," UC spokesperson Dianne Klein said in a statement. "UC strongly believes in the value of diversity and for the past 20-plus years since Prop. 209 was implemented in California, we have worked tirelessly using race-neutral methods to ensure that a UC education is accessible to all segments of our state population, the most diverse in the country."

Sander received applicant and enrollee data from the University of California in 2008, which was updated in 2010. In August 2017, Sander requested the university system update the data again, which the university denied, according to the filing.

"The stonewalling, misdirection, filibustering, and ultimate refusal to provide information demonstrates the Regents' deep and pervasive lack of transparency," according to the filing.

The university argued producing the data would be too costly and burdensome and that creating new records, as would be necessary to provide the dataset, was not required by the CPRA, the filing stated. The State Bar made a similar argument in Sander's previous case and prevailed. Sander v. State Bar of California, A150061 and A150625 (Cal. App. 1st Dist. Aug. 23, 2018).

The lawsuit's allegations the university is not complying with the CPRA are "completely untrue," Klein said in a statement.

Sander said he has outstanding records requests at universities across the nation but has no other lawsuits currently planned.