Hey, Maybe It Is Whom You Know

University of California Regent Ward Connerly leads the opposition to affirmative action on UC campuses except when it comes to his friends. He intervened affirmatively on behalf of a community college student with a mediocre 2.6 grade point average who was seeking admission to the state’s premier public campus, UC Berkeley. That unqualified applicant got in while thousands of much better applicants were rejected. Is this the sort of fairness Connerly advocates?

Connerly claims he sought no special treatment when he gave two applications to the campus chancellor during a regents meeting. That’s hard to believe. It’s even harder to believe that the application of the student with the low grades would have been considered favorably if it had arrived in the mail with perhaps dozens of other applications.

Another questionable Berkeley applicant was admitted at the request of UC Regent Howard Leach. VIPs routinely forwarded applications to UC Berkeley, a Times investigation has found, and a special committee reviewed those applications. In 19 cases, intervention by the committee made the difference for students who would have been denied admission. Their powerful connections clearly gained them the kind of preference that Connerly, Gov. Pete Wilson and a majority of the regents claim to find abhorrent under affirmative action programs.

At UCLA, special requests were channeled through Chancellor Charles E. Young’s office or the fund-raising staff. That too resulted in special treatment for some applicants with powerful connections, including the sons and daughters of some major donors.

California’s public universities are the best in the nation. No one should be admitted based on whom they know rather than on what they know.