Is this really the hill UC wants to die on?

 

The idea of a hill to die on is apparently a military expression meaning something that has to be defended regardless of cost. It's actually not a very good expression. One is reminded of the opening scene in the movie "Patton" in which General Patton says the object of war is not to die for your country but to make your opponents die for their country. In any case, the news coming out of Washington, DC is currently offering UC whole mountain ranges of alternative hills to die on.

Yours truly came across this story of a particular hill on which UC may not wish to die:

The father of a Palo Alto teen who garnered national attention for getting rejected by 16 colleges and hired by Google as a software engineer has filed a new lawsuit on Feb. 11 against the University of California and five UC campuses -- UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB and UC Davis -- as well as the U.S. Department of Education, for racial discrimination. "What we're trying to get out of this is a fair treatment for future Asian applicants going forward, including my other kids and my future grandkids," says Nan Zhong.

His now 19-year-old son, Stanley Zhong, is a co-plaintiff, along with their group called SWORD, Students Who Oppose Racial Discrimination, comprised of other students and families who feel Asian Americans are often discriminated against in the college admissions process. Stanley Zhong had a 4.42 GPA from Gunn High School and 1590 out of 1600 on the SATs. He also founded his own document-signing startup and tutored underserved kids in coding. His college rejections and his employment offer from Google became a lightning rod in the national debate over the college admissions process...

Full story at https://abc7news.com/post/palo-alto-teen-rejected-16-colleges-hired-google-files-racial-discrimination-lawsuit-university-california/15933493/.

Video at https://ia600105.us.archive.org/29/items/newsom-1-2-25-new-laws/UC%20sued%20over%20admission%20discrimination%20against%20Asians%202-20-2025.mp4.

As blog readers will know, Harvard and the University of North Carolina lost an admissions case before the US Supreme Court on the issue of anti-Asian discrimination. UC, of course, can say that because California has the anti-affirmative action Prop 209 on the books, it can't possibly be doing what Harvard and UNC were doing. But there is also on  the record the fact that UC and the UC Regents campaigned to repeal Prop 209 in 2020, and were defeated in part by opposition from the Asian community:

Video: https://ia601700.us.archive.org/25/items/prop-16-ad-opposing/Fighting%20Against%20Prop%2016%2C%20She%20Feels%20like%20%E2%80%9CWonder%20Woman%E2%80%9D%20_%20NO%20on%20Prop%2016.mp4.

Beyond that bit of history is the fact that the decision by the Regents to drop any consideration of SAT/ACT scores was made despite an Academic Senate recommendation to the contrary. So, as a result, Mr. Zhong's 1590 score wasn't considered.

In short, maybe the wise thing for UC to do is to reach some kind of settlement with Mr. Zhong. A lawsuit will open the door to discovery of internal documentation about the UC admissions process. Maybe the SAT/ACT issue needs some reexamination.* Maybe it's not necessary to die on this particular hill, given the plethora of other hills now available. Just a thought...

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*For a more recent review of this issue, see https://www.nber.org/papers/w33389.