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Following race-based admissions scandal, UC faces a reckoning

Two UCLA schools face federal findings of race-based admissions just as UC faculty warn that students arrive unprepared for college math.

By Garry Tan 8 min read
Following race-based admissions scandal, UC faces a reckoning

TL;DR

The Justice Department says two UCLA graduate schools, medicine and law, considered race in admissions after the Supreme Court banned the practice in 2023; UCLA denies it. The findings land as UC reconsiders its 2020 decision to drop the SAT, made over its own faculty task force’s objections, and as more than 3,000 UC faculty warn that incoming students lack basic math and writing skills.

What the Justice Department found

  • The law school. On Oct. 1, 2026, the department’s Civil Rights Division announced findings that UCLA Law discriminated against white and Asian applicants in admitting its 2023, 2024 and 2025 classes. The department says the school “rejected white and Asian applicants who had the same LSAT scores as admitted black and Hispanic applicants.” It also says that in 2024 and 2025 combined, “half of the admitted black applicants had LSAT scores that were at or below 90% of the admitted white applicants.” According to the findings, the school’s essay prompts were “designed to elicit information about race,” and admissions staff explained how to disclose race at recruitment events such as a “Diversity Admissions Open House.” (Findings letter)
  • The medical school. On May 6, 2026, after a review lasting nearly a year, the department concluded that Geffen’s leadership “intentionally selected applicants based on their race.” It reported that admitted Black and Latino applicants had lower median MCAT scores and GPAs than admitted white and Asian applicants. The findings letter cites internal emails, training materials, and a “guiding principles” memo that, according to the Los Angeles Times, instructed committee chairs to ensure representation of applicants who “identify as BIPOC.” The department has also joined a lawsuit against the medical school brought by Students for Fair Admissions and other groups.
  • Berkeley Law. On Sept. 9, the Justice and Education departments made similar findings against UC Berkeley’s law school. Their analysis says that in 2025, Black applicants had “5.8 times higher odds of admission than comparable white applicants.” The investigations grew out of compliance reviews opened in March 2025 at UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine and Stanford.

UCLA Law said it complies with state and federal law and that students are “admitted through a comprehensive, merit-based review process.” The medical school said its admissions are “based on merit.” The findings are not court rulings. They are also part of a broader dispute: last year the administration demanded a $1.2 billion settlement from UCLA and suspended $584 million in research grants, which a federal judge later ordered restored.

State law

California voters approved Proposition 209 in 1996. It amended the state constitution to bar preferential treatment based on race in public education. In 2020, Proposition 16 asked voters to repeal that ban, and it failed, about 57% to 43%.

How the SAT fits in

The admissions findings at UCLA’s graduate schools rest largely on standardized test scores. The department compared the LSAT and MCAT results of admitted students by race. UC’s undergraduate admissions have not used such scores since 2020, and the reasons for dropping them were tied to race from the start.

  • The equity rationale. When UC dropped the SAT, its leaders argued that the test screened out students of color who often lacked test-prep resources, and that scores tracked race and family wealth more closely than readiness. A 2019 lawsuit brought by students and groups including Chinese for Affirmative Action, the Dolores Huerta Foundation and Compton Unified School District challenged the tests as discriminatory on the basis of race, wealth and disability. UC settled in 2021, agreeing not to consider SAT or ACT scores at all.

  • The faculty’s recommendation. In January 2020, a UC Academic Senate task force recommended keeping the tests. It found them predictive of college success across demographic groups, and it advised against even making them optional until UC had studied the effects. The Senate’s assembly endorsed the task force’s recommendations 51–0. In its letter to Napolitano, the assembly said the analysis had addressed the same equity concerns the critics were raising:

    “The Assembly was persuaded by the analyses conducted by members of the STTF which demonstrated, perhaps counter-intuitively, that UC’s use of standardized test scores within their local context protects the admission eligibility of the very populations about whom there is concern, and ensures that under-represented, low-income, historically minoritized, and other similar populations are eligible for admission at UC.”

  • The Regents’ decision. On May 21, 2020, the Regents went against those recommendations. On the advice of then-President Janet Napolitano, they voted unanimously to suspend the testing requirement and to phase the tests out of admissions entirely.

Student preparation

  • Faculty warnings. More than 3,000 UC faculty at all nine undergraduate campuses have signed letters calling for the SAT’s return. They say first-year students arrive lacking basic math and reasoning skills, and that instructors have resorted to teaching middle-school math.
  • UC San Diego. A November 2025 campus faculty report found that between 2020 and 2025, the number of entering students whose math skills fell below high-school level increased nearly thirtyfold, and 70% of them fell below middle-school level. Enrollment in remedial math rose from 32 students in fall 2020 to 921 in fall 2025, or 11.8% of the incoming class. The report attributes the decline to the pandemic, “the elimination of standardized testing, grade inflation, and the expansion of admissions from under-resourced high schools.”
  • Systemwide data. UC’s own figures, presented to the Regents in September, show a five-year decline in average grades in preparatory math, precalculus and calculus, with rising rates of D’s, F’s and withdrawals. The same presentation reported record first-year retention of 93% and a record four-year graduation rate of 74%. UCLA and UC Riverside officials said they found no evidence that students admitted without test scores are less likely to stay in school or graduate. Regent Jay Sures, who voted to drop the SAT in 2020, told the board: “I’m starting to believe I might have made a mistake.”

The K-12 pipeline

At the same time, many California school districts have cut advanced K-12 coursework in the name of equity. San Francisco is the best-known example:

“The origins of this problem are definitely in K-12,” Regent Rusty Areias said at the September meeting. “Unless we fix K-12, I don’t care what we do – it’s not going to be successful.”

Where it stands now

UC’s Academic Senate is reviewing whether to bring back the SAT or ACT, or to use California’s Smarter Balanced test instead. It is expected to send a recommendation to the Regents by June 2027. Any change would take effect no earlier than the fall 2028 application cycle. Meanwhile, the Justice Department’s lawsuit against UCLA is pending. On Oct. 1, UC President James Milliken announced that the university had moved to dismiss it.

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