Ever since the adoption of Proposition 209, which banned the use of affirmative action in admissions decisions at California’s public universities and colleges, various campuses and departments have devised ways to increase minority enrollment without blatantly violating the law. Methods have included giving special preferences to applicants who have faced certain circumstances in their lives, such as poverty, being raised by a single parent, debilitating injury, and similar hardships. The expectation is that because minorities often experience these circumstances at a higher rate than non-minorities, the proportion of minorities at campuses will increase without the explicit use of racial preferences.

Of course, when you skirt a law you will oftentimes face accusations that you have indeed broken it. Such is the lesson being learned by the Cal Extension Campus known as UCLA, which in addition to stealing UC Berkeley’s fight song also adopted an admissions policy that is very similar, one that looks heavily at applicant’s life experiences with the non-stated goal of increasing minority enrollment. Professor Tim Groseclose, a former member of UCLA’s committee on Undergraduate Admissions, has published a scathing report that alleges the campus did in fact use race as a factor in violation of Prop 209. The full report can be read here but the professor’s main allegation is that when a minority applicant happened to mention their race in the personal statement section of the application (aka the essays) they were generally advantaged.

In order to further investigate his suspicions, Professor Groseclose asked the university to provide him with information regarding students who mentioned race in their statements. UCLA has refused his request, citing privacy concerns. Even after the Groseclose pledged to use the findings for the sole purpose of improving the admissions process at the campus and not to release them publicly, he was rebuffed.

UCLA may or may not have been illegally considering race in the application process. There is not enough evidence in the professor’s report or elsewhere that would prove such a finding. That said, there is certainly more than reasonable basis for suspicion. We know that UCLA was under tremendous political pressure to admit more minority applicants. We know that they created the new “holistic” admissions system with the all but stated goal of increasing diversity on campus. And we know that a professor who was once involved in such admissions decisions believes impropriety has occurred and his efforts to further investigate have been snuffed out.

If UCLA is truly following the law and not in any way considering race in admissions decisions, it has no reason to hide. The claim that the release of admissions information would jeopardize student privacy rights is ridiculous. The only real number that would need to be known is the percentage of students who mentioned race in their personal statements who were eventually admitted. Such numbers are routinely, often eagerly, provided by admissions offices, such as the SAT scores of entering freshmen and demographic breakdowns of students. There is no reason this data cannot be provided not only to Professor Groseclose, but to the owners of UCLA: The people of the State of California.

Perhaps UCLA is not in fact guilty of considering race in admittance. Maybe the only thing they are guilty of is considering hardships when evaluating applications, a completely acceptable practice if done in an unbiased manner. But the campus, and all public colleges and universities, had better start answering to the people of California and shine some light on this very suspicious process that can make or break a student’s dreams.