By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – The University of California system was sued on Monday by a student group for alleged racial discrimination in admissions by favoring Black and Hispanic applicants over Asian-American and white applicants.
Students Against Racial Discrimination said the use of racial preferences at all nine of the system’s campuses lets students with inferior academic credentials win admission at the expense of better-qualified applicants.
The group said this violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, as well as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars federal funds recipients from discriminating based on race.
It also said the preferences run afoul of Proposition 209, which California voters passed in 1996 to forbid race and other factors in public education, public employment and public contracting.
In a statement, the University of California said its undergraduate admissions applications collect data on students’ race and ethnicity “for statistical purposes only and they are not used for admission.”
It also said that since Proposition 209 passed, it has adjusted its admissions practices to comply with the law.
Monday’s lawsuit followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection last June of affirmative action at colleges and universities, as it struck down race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.
It also comes as many companies scale back diversity initiatives, which have come under attack from U.S. President Donald Trump and many other conservatives.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, a frequent target of Trump’s criticism, is among the defendants in Monday’s lawsuit.
‘MERITOCRACY’
Students Against Racial Discrimination said it was founded in 2024 to “restore meritocracy in academia” and fight efforts to subordinate academic merit to diversity considerations.
It accused the California campuses of using “holistic”
approaches first adopted at the University of California, Los
Angeles to close gaps in admission rates between Black and
Hispanic applicants and other applicants, regardless of their
qualifications.
In one illustration cited in the complaint, the University
of California, Berkeley admitted 13% of Black, in-state students
seeking undergraduate admission in 2010, compared with an
overall 21% admission rate.
By 2023, the respective admission rates were 10% and 12%,
the complaint said.
The lawsuit in the Santa Ana, California, federal court seeks to block the University of California from using race in student admissions, and to appoint a court monitor to oversee admission decisions.
Lawyers for the student group include America First Legal, founded by Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, and Jonathan Mitchell, also known for advocating conservative causes.
The case is Students Against Racial Discrimination v. Regents of the University of California et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 25-00192.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
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