UCLA Program Faulted in Admissions Probe

After more than four years of investigation, the U.S. Department of Education announced yesterday that one graduate program in the University of California at Los Angeles is guilty of discriminating against Asian-American applicants.

The mathematics program at UCLA was the only one of 84 graduate departments whose rate of admission for Asian Americans was found to be significantly lower than that of whites, said Andy Y. Sun, a Department of Education official.

The Office of Civil Rights, the arm of the Department of Education that conducted the review, concluded that the admissions practices of the math department are in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion in federally funded institutions, Sun said.

UCLA denied allegations of unfair admissions policies and plans to appeal the decision to an administrative law judge, according to a statement issued yesterday by UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young.

"We firmly believe that racially neutral criteria were used to make [admissions] decisions," UCLA's statement read, "and that the [Office of Civil Rights] has no basis to conclude that discrimination exists."

Sun would not say when the Office of Civil Rights would announce the results of its investigation into the admissions practices of UCLA's three undergraduate schools.

Harvard College's admissions policies are the subject of a similar Office of Civil Rights review, which is expected to be concluded sometime this month. Sun cautioned that the findings in UCLA's case would give no indication as to results the Harvard decision.

A Comprehensive Analysis

Sun said that the review was a comprehensive analysis of admissions rates at all UCLA programs in the years 1987 and 1988. Discrepancies between percentages of Asian Americans and whites admitted in the UCLA math department were called "significant," but Sun would not elaborate on the statistics.

"[The Office of Civil Rights] did not discern a consistent basis for the admissions decisions nor could it conclude that the department adhered to its stated admissions policies, practices and criteria in making its admissions decisions," said an Office of Civil Rights statement.

There will be no penalty for UCLA as long as it changes its admissions policies in accordance with Office of Civil Rights recommendations, Sun said.

Young countered the investigation's findings, saying in a statement that the proportion of Asian Americans at UCLA has increased from 8.4 percent in 1979 to15 percent in 1989. He added that the proportionof Asian and Asian-American students is 22.3percent for 1989.

Critics of the admissions practices of UCLA andHarvard have charged that racial quotas have beenestablished to decrease the number of AsianAmericans in the student bodies. Department ofEducation officials have said that they initiatedthe review on their own and not in response tospecific complaints