UC must immediately drop use of the SAT and ACT for admissions and scholarships, judge rules

The University of California must immediately suspend all use of SAT and ACT test scores for admission and scholarship decisions under a preliminary injunction issued by an Alameda County Superior Court judge.

The ruling came in a lawsuit asserting that the use of standardized test scores is broadly biased — and particularly detrimental to students with disabilities who seek to take the test during the coronavirus crisis.

Superior Court Judge Brad Seligman said in his Monday ruling that plaintiffs had shown sufficient cause to stop the tests for now because applicants with disabilities had virtually no access to test-taking sites or legally required accommodations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The barriers faced by students with disabilities have been greatly exacerbated by the COVID-19 epidemic, which has disrupted test-taking locations, closed schools and limited access to school counselors,” Seligman wrote.

The injunction on the use of SAT and ACT results will affect all California applicants to the UC system.

“The SAT and ACT are dead and gone as far as the UC system is concerned,” said Mark Rosenbaum, a Los Angeles attorney who helped file the lawsuit as director of Public Counsel’s Opportunity Under Law project. The “historic decision puts an end to racist tests that deprived countless California students of color, students with disabilities, and students from low-income families of a fair shot at admissions to the UC system.”

Rosenbaum said he and his team targeted only the UC system to efficiently manage the case but that the court’s reasoning should apply to all colleges and universities, both public and private, across the country.

“If other universities don’t follow, we’ll come after them as well,” he said, adding that he would be conferring with civil and disability rights advocates in other states.

In a statement Tuesday, UC said it “respectfully disagrees” with the court decision and was evaluating whether it would pursue further legal actions.

“An injunction may interfere with the university’s efforts to implement an appropriate and comprehensive admissions policies and its ability to attract and enroll students of diverse backgrounds and experiences,” the statement said.

SAT officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment but have long argued that their tests are not discriminatory and provide a uniform and useful yardstick to assess applicants from different schools and states.

ACT officials said they offered accommodations to students with disabilities and are committed to “ensuring access to our assessment’ for them “despite the difficulties that COVID-19 has presented globally.”

Earlier this year, the UC Board of Regents unanimously voted to phase out standardized test scores in admissions decisions after concluding that the tests were unacceptably biased based on race, income and parent education level and did not provide useful information about how students would fare in college. Regents voted to make the tests optional this year and next, then phase them out, but would still allow them to be used for scholarship decisions. Regents also gave campuses the flexibility to choose to drop them immediately rather than continue using them on an optional basis until 2022.

UC Berkeley, UC Irvine and UC Santa Cruz already have decided to drop the SAT and ACT testing requirements altogether. Most of the system’s five other undergraduate campuses, including UCLA, had planned to consider the scores for applicants who chose to submit them. UC campuses will begin accepting applications for admission to the 2021-22 academic year on Nov. 1.

“University admissions officials and faculty are best positioned to determine appropriate admissions decisions and procedures, taking into account the individual needs and priorities of a particular campus,” the UC statement said.

The lawsuit was brought by several high school students and nonprofits, including Community Coalition, Dolores Huerta Foundation, College Seekers, Chinese for Affirmative Action, College Access and Little Manila Rising. One plaintiff, identified only as Gary W., was described in the ruling as a recent high school graduate with learning disabilities who had completed all UC admission prerequisites（which include several college-prep courses）. But the student faced what the ruling called “formidable barriers” to taking the SAT and ultimately could not do so, prompting his decision to not apply for UC admission this year.

Some accommodations, such as Braille and large-print exams, 100% extended time for tests and computers for those who cannot hand write essays, are only available at high school testing centers, but those have been closed during the coronavirus crisis, said Abigail Graber, an attorney with Brown, Goldstein & Levy, a Baltimore law firm representing the plaintiffs. She added that students also have been unable to obtain needed documentation of their disabilities because they can’t meet with high school counselors and psychologists for evaluations during the pandemic.

In its own filing, the university argued that campuses should have the flexibility to use optional testing as allowed this year and next so all applicants can showcase their strengths — which could be test scores for some disadvantaged students, including those with disabilities. Applicants who perform well on standardized tests, for instance, could use their scores to offset lower grades or completion of fewer honors or AP courses.

UC officials also argued that a ruling was premature because the application window for fall 2021 won’t open until November and most campuses have not finalized their admissions process yet. Therefore, UC argued, no applicant has yet demonstrated any harm suffered.

Seligman, however, rejected those assertions. He agreed with UC that no data yet exists that show students with disabilities have been harmed. But he noted that several campuses have indicated they plan to give all applicants a first review based on factors other than test scores, then provide a second review with test scores for those who have them. Most if not all students with disabilities would be denied the benefit of the second review, he said, since the chances of being able to take the SAT or ACT with or without accommodations during the pandemic are “almost nil.”

“In short, applicants with disabilities are denied meaningful access to the ‘aid, benefit or service’ that test-takers have,” Seligman wrote. “They are denied a potential second chance at admission.”

加州刷新历史：SATACT有种族偏见，大学录取立刻停止使用

（SNN）

洛杉矶时报今天的大标题是：加州大学必须立即停止使用SAT或ACT成绩来进行大学录取和奖学金决定，“UC must immediately drop use of the SAT and ACT for admissions and scholarships, judge rules“。

图自LATIMES

报道说，加利福尼亚大学必须根据阿拉米达县高等法院法官发出的初步禁令，立即中止对入学和奖学金决定的所有SAT和ACT测试成绩的使用。

该裁决是在一项诉讼中做出的，该诉讼声称标准化考试分数的使用普遍存在偏见-特别是对在冠状病毒疫情危机期间寻求参加考试的残障学生不利。

高等法院法官布拉德·塞利格曼（Brad Seligman）在周一的裁决中说，原告已经有足够的理由暂时停止这类标化考试，因为在COVID-19大流行期间，残疾申请人实际上根本无法进入考试地点或达到法律上规定的条件。

塞利格曼写道：“ COVID-19流行病极大地加剧了残疾学生所面临的障碍，这种流行扰乱了参加考试的地点，封闭的学校以及获得学校辅导员的机会，”塞利格曼补充说，几乎没有数据可以证明这些测试甚至是其未来大学表现的有效或可靠指标。

他于9月29日召开了案件管理会议。使用SAT和ACT结果的禁令将影响所有加州的UC系统申请人。

发起诉讼的洛杉矶律师马克·罗森鲍姆（Mark Rosenbaum）说：“就UC系统而言，SAT和ACT早已一去不复返了”，这位律师作为一个“法律机会的公共法律顾问”项目的主任发起诉讼。 他说“这是历史性的判决，终结了种族主义考试，这类（SAT ACT标化）种族考试剥夺了无数加州有色，残障和低收入家庭学生入读UC系统的机会。”

UC大学系统的官员周二没有立即发表评论。

SAT和ACT标化考试的组织机构的官员也无法立即置评，但长期以来SAT和ACT标化考试组织一直认为他们的考试没有歧视性，并提供了统一而有用的衡量标准，以评估来自不同学校和州的申请人。

今年的早些时候，加州大学董事会的董事们一致认为，在种族，收入和父母教育程度的基础上，SATACT等标化考试存在不可接受的偏见，并且未提供有关学生在大学中的表现的有用信息，因此，加州大学董事会一致投票决定在录取决定中逐步淘汰标准化考试成绩。董事投票决定将考试定为两年，然后逐步淘汰，但是仍允许其用于奖学金决定。

就在不久之前，加州大学伯克利分校，加州大学欧文分校和加州圣克鲁斯分校已经决定完全放弃SAT和ACT考试要求，但根据法官周一做出的该裁定，其他的学校 加州大学洛杉矶分校和该系统的其他五个本科校园已计划考虑选择提交分数的申请人的分数。UC校园将于11月1日开始接受2021-22学年的入学申请。

加利福尼亚大学（University of California），简称加州大学，是位于美国加利福尼亚州的一个由10所公立大学组成的大学行政系统，是世界上最具影响力的公立大学系统，也是最大的大学联邦体，其旗下大学在各项学术指标和排名中均名列前茅，  被誉为“公立高等教育的典范”。包括加大伯克利分校（UC Berkeley）、加大洛杉矶分校（UCLA）、加大圣地亚哥分校（UCSD）、加大旧金山分校（UCSF）、加大圣塔芭芭拉分校（UCSB）、加大尔湾分校（UCI）、加大戴维斯分校（UCD）、加大圣克鲁兹分校（UCSC）、加大河滨分校（UCR）、加大美熹德分校（UCM）。