The ban, which applies to public institutions including colleges, was imposed by a 1996 ballot initiative successfully pushed by Connerly.
In the UC system, whites still make up the biggest share of the undergraduate population. According to 2002 figures, they constitute 37% of those students. Next come Asians, at 33%; Latinos, at 13%; and African Americans, at 3%.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday November 07, 2003 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 55 words Type of Material: Correction
UCLA admissions -- An article in Monday's Section A incorrectly reported that black and Latino students with SAT scores of 1,000 or less were about one-quarter more likely to be admitted to UCLA than Asian or white students with similar scores. The correct figure is 53%, as shown in the chart that accompanied the article.
At UC Berkeley, Asians are the largest group, at 38%, followed by whites, at 30%; Latinos, at 10%; and African Americans, 4%.
Asians also are the biggest group at UCLA, at 35%, followed by whites, at 33%, Latinos, at 15%, and African Americans, 4%.
Connerly said Friday that he was pleased at The Times' overall finding that applicants were neither helped nor hurt by their race or ethnicity.
"I am heartened to hear that there is no significant disparity systemwide between the underrepresented students" and others, Connerly said.
"But I think one still has to ask, are we displacing anybody at the top end? Are we taking a lower-achieving crop of students in order to preserve this diversity on our campuses?"
The data released by UC do not allow a determination on whether the low-scoring students are displacing applicants with higher SAT scores. UC officials said that in many cases these two groups of students are not in direct competition for slots, in part because the higher scoring students are often applying to the most competitive schools within the university, such as computer science and engineering.
Moores said it was "gratifying" to learn that UC admissions did not appear to be racially biased. "We're a multiethnic state, and I would hope that's the case," he said.
But he, along with Connerly, expressed surprise at the high rate at which students who score 1000 or below on the SAT are admitted to the UC system. "What the university's motivation in all this is beats the hell out of me, but it's not about academic excellence," Moores said.
Several admissions experts both within and outside the UC system said that, overall, UC appeared to be evaluating students fairly.
"It strikes me that the UC admissions committee is doing its work," said William G. Tierney, director of USC's Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis. "There can be quite rational and valid reasons why they have admitted students with SATs under 1000, especially when a vast majority of those students appear to have SATs over 900, and it does not seem to be that race [was] a crucial indicator."
