Two lawsuits demand UC drop SAT for admissions

Requiring applicants to take standardized tests violates rights of disadvantaged students, groups say.

The University of California is violating state civil rights laws by requiring applicants to take the SAT or ACT, standardized tests that unlawfully discriminate against disabled, low-income, multilingual and underrepresented minority students, two lawsuits filed Tuesday allege.

The lawsuits, filed on behalf of the Compton Unified School District, four students and six community organizations, demand that the 10-campus UC system eliminate the testing requirement. Any decision by UC to drop the tests — as some prominent UC officials themselves have urged — would play an outsize role in the future of standardized testing in the nation because of the size and status of the premier public research university system.

“Rather than fulfilling its vision as an ‘engine of opportunity for all Californians’ and creating a level playing field in which all students are evaluated based on individual merit, the UC requires all applicants to subject themselves to SAT and ACT tests that are demonstrably discriminatory against the state’s least privileged students, the very students who would most benefit from higher education,” one of the lawsuits states.

The lawsuits allege that UC’s testing requirement violates the California Constitution’s equal protection guarantees and bans on discrimination by state educational and civil rights laws.

UC spokeswoman Claire Doan said the university was “disappointed” by the lawsuits. She noted that UC President Janet Napolitano last year asked the Academic Senate, which sets admissions standards, to review the use of standardized testing and the university has “already devoted substantial resources to studying this complex issue.” The Academic Senate is expected to issue recommendations early next year.

In a letter to UC officials in October, lawyers for Compton Unified and others threatened litigation if UC did not immediately end the testing requirement. The suits were filed Tuesday in Alameda County Superior Court after the groups failed to reach a resolution.

Officials with ACT and the College Board, which owns the SAT, sharply disputed allegations Tuesday that their tests are discriminatory. They said that differences in test scores reflected social inequities in access to quality education, not their exams. They argue that their tests are predictive of college performance and offer a uniform yardstick that allows colleges to compare students across a range of states and high schools.

“The notion that the SAT is discriminatory is false,” College Board spokesman Zachary Goldberg said in statement. “Regrettably, the [See SAT, B4]