(U. Cal.) Accused of Bias Against Christian Schools (suit re. admissions)

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: University Is Accused of Bias Against Christian Schools
By CAROLYN MARSHALL
Published: November 20, 2005


Cody Young is an evangelical Christian who attends a religious high school in Southern California. With stellar grades, competitive test scores and an impressive list of extracurricular activities, Mr. Young has mapped a future that includes studying engineering at the University of California and a career in the aerospace industry, his lawyers have said.

But Mr. Young, his teachers and his family fear his beliefs may hurt his chance to attend the university. They say the public university system, which has 10 campuses, discriminates against students from evangelical Christian schools, especially faith-based ones like Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, where Mr. Young is a senior.

Mr. Young, five other Calvary students, the school and the Association of Christian Schools International, which represents 4,000 religious schools, sued the University of California in the summer, accusing it of "viewpoint discrimination" and unfair admission standards that violate the free speech and religious rights of evangelical Christians.

The suit, scheduled for a hearing on Dec. 12 in Federal District Court in Los Angeles, says many of Calvary's best students are at a disadvantage when they apply to the university because admissions officials have refused to certify several of the school's courses on literature, history, social studies and science that use curriculums and textbooks with a Christian viewpoint....

***

A lawyer for the university, Christopher M. Patti, called the suit baseless. Acknowledging the university does not accept some courses, Mr. Patti said that more than 43 courses were recognized and that university campuses had offered admission to at least 18 Calvary students since 2002....The suit is being closely watched by free speech advocates, other public universities and Christian education leaders. All see it as a possible harbinger for admissions policies at state universities nationally....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/national/20christian.html

[Demeter]

1. Bias Against Ignorance and Ill-Prepared Students, Maybe

Where are the lions, the Spanish Inquisition, or other hallmarks of persecution? Too much wolf-crying going on.

[silverweb]

2. "Viewpoint discrimination" ???

That's rich, coming from the anti-science fundy gangs.

:rofl:

[jwirr]

20. And from schools that from the beginning have selected

their students. Most of these schools deny entrance to children with disabilities and/or behavioral problems. Their grade curves reflect a selected student body and that is and has always been why it statistically appears that privates schools do better than public schools. I hope they get their asses kicked in this suit.

[silverweb]

24. Good point.

I'd completely overlooked their admission policies, was thinking purely of their anti-science, pro-dogma attitudes -- and then the audacity to cry "discrimination." I hope they get their asses kicked, too!

[msongs]

3. UC cannot discriminate IN FAVOR of religion. nt

[Igel]

4. The issue isn't the absolute number or the fact that they were

offered admissions to campuses. There are good campuses and not-so-good campuses. You could take various courses in HS that aren't approved and consequently wind up being docked points towards admission, or towards admission at the 'flagship' campuses. Riverside instead of Berkeley, or noplace instead of Irvine.

As far as preparedness, every year UC offers admission--sometimes to the flagship campuses--to numerous unqualified students. Typically for social motives: they're in one class or another that's considered under-represented or whose numbers it's seen as desirable to increase, and significant effort and monies are expended to bring them up to minimum standards. And still they have a significantly higher drop-out rate.

They used to have classes, with large enrollment, for the purpose of preparing students for freshman English and math. They were cut primarily because the budget in the early '90s wouldn't support them, with the refrain "We shouldn't be doing the high schools' job."

It would be helpful to know how the students that were accepted from that school, and others involved in the case, fared: Did they do average, above average, or below average? Would they have likely done well at 'higher prestige' campuses? That is, is there empirical evidence for the claim that the courses disallowed for credit prevent proper preparation for the students, and not taking other courses adversely affects the students' college careers.

[Mz Pip]

16. UC admission mythology 101

Prop 209 eliminated any consideration given to race, gender, ethnicity.

UC admissions requirements do not change based on the campus you apply to. If a course isn't accepted by Berkeley, it isn't accepted by Riverside. A student may be able to get into Riverside with somewhat lower grades and test scores that would be needed for Berkeley, but the coursework required is the same.


We do not admit students based on "social motives" alone. We could fill the campuses with kids who have hardships, are first generation, low income, etc. Many factors are considered but there is no point in admitting a student who is most likely to fail. There is no desire to set a student up for failure just to satisfy a desire to increase the numbers of a particular under-represented segment of the population.

UC eligible students can get into a UC campus; it may not be their first choice but if they are eligible they can get in. Last year UC Berkeley admitted about 24% of those who applied. It is a very competitive school. 37,000 students applied for about 3,500 spots. About 16,000 had 4.0s or above. You do the math. Just because you have good test scores, a high GPA or are student body president does not guarantee admissions.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[Hekate]

29. Thank you MzPip for the reality check. If everyone wants in, more campuses

will have to be built -- and even then, not everyone who wants to go to Berkeley will get into that particular campus.

But building more campuses in sufficient numbers to take care of California's greatly expanded population is really not going to happen, because the state is not going to spend that kind of money -- presumably based on some underlying desire of the residents to not tax themselves sufficiently to PAY for it. Tuition, however, has gone up 5 times in 5 years, which is driving away middle class students.

Affirmative action students didn't displace white students, sheer numbers of other mostly-white students did. Blaming AA was always a dodge and a whine and a way of not facing the fact of too-few campuses.

Society has to pay for education, show that it values it by really subsidizing it -- I'm more than willing for my tax money to go for education from pre-school up to graduate school -- but there must have been some consensus I missed because it turns out no one here really wants to PAY for the campuses and teachers with, you know, TAX money. :argh:

Thanks again, MzPip, for laying out the math for our fellow DUers.

Hekate

[Igel]

36. No, UC doesn't admit students on social motives alone.

And I don't think I said I did. But the Regents' actions eliminating affirmative action were fought (Prop 209 was an afterthought at UC), and widely disagreed with. The administrators at my UC campus openly talked of how to circumvent it, as did the UC's OP. Some were through official outreach programs; some were through unofficial practices that were poorly documented, but which didn't clearly contradict the written criteria. In any event, there are students that would not meet the merely academic and achievements profile at many UC schools because certain non-academic and non-achievement related criteria are employed. Numerous social, economic, geographic, and educational criteria were proposed, and in each case there was discussion of how it would affect social goals: sure, we could admit the lowest x %, or people from poor schools, or something else ... but first, how does it affect black/Latino/... enrollment. In other words, race-based tweaking of the admission scores were the goal, but it had to be masked as something else. The bottom line, at the time, wasn't even a secret anybody tried to keep, except from the Regents.

There are additional ways of accomplishing things that administrators want to accomplish. For example, when the edict was proposed saying that illegal aliens would have to pay out-of-state fees, there was discussion how it would affect the two dozen or so students at my campus that fell into that category: it was an unexpected hardship, and they would, almost to a person, be forced to leave school.

Late in the academic year, when the rule was finalized, the issue came up again in meeting with the chancellor. No illegal aliens were enrolled at the campus, he said; the UG student prez and I were aghast--the UG president had spoken with some of the students--until we understood the import of his words. He explained further. Each such student had been contacted concerning "mistaken impressions" created by their applications and the other paperwork on file, and administrators sat down with the students in order to show them how to rectify that "error" and no longer yield the "mistaken impression."

One can have a perfectly balanced and calibrated scale; but one can ever so gently place a thumb on it for some customers, and not for others.

[HockeyMom]

5. Start teaching CREATIONISM in HS and see how many

colleges they get into.

[LeftyMom]

42. They are

They're using Bob Jones and Abeka science and those teach young earth creationism.

[longship]

6. Reilgious claptrap instead of science.

The Bible instead of literature. No scientific methodology. Denial of history of science. Denial of documented historic events. All in the name of some ideology based on supernatural elements which are never, *ever* observed (no matter what anybody says or believes).

[Mz Pip]

7. This is bullshit

I read applications for UC. We do not discriminate. There are many many many students who come from competitive private schools, some of them are religious. They are given the same consideration as any student coming from a public school

There is a process by which a course is accepted at UC. UC does not accept PE, yearbook, leadership, and a whole bevy of intro courses. That's how it works. If a school wants to have a course accepted to meet the UC requirements, it has to go through a process showing that the course meets the rigorous standards necessary to be considered "College Prep."

This isn't the fault of UC. IT's the fault of the high schools for not meeting the standards. The standards are not discriminatory, they are just rigorous.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[DeepModem Mom]

9. Thanks for this valuable post, based on your personal experience...

Mz Pip.

[leesa]

35. Absolutely, any of us who have gone to college or other schools have

had to be sure the schools, and thus their classes, were accredited. Just more whining from the religious right.

[ninkasi]

8. Fundies have control of all three branches of government

and still aren't happy unless they're playing the victim. This student might have excelled at his school, but if what the school teaches is not accepted by the admissions standards, then he needs to go to Bob Jones University, or another religious college, where his views will be the norm.

You can't have it both ways; you can't insist on the right to a religious education, then bitch when the students don't learn according to accepted standards. He wants a career in the aerospace industry, but if what he has learned is Intelligent Design, will he be qualified?

[DELUSIONAL]

10. These "evangelical Christians" don't teach science

in their schools.

Unless the students want to take remedial science courses at a Junior college and THEN reapply for admission -- they will have to deal with second rate education.

Once these creeps get a foot hold then they will demand that the "liberal professors" be tossed out of the once first rate colleges and universities.

Dark ages here we come -- I am so damned glad that I don't have kids.

[AlCzervik]

11. This is total hooey. I live not too far from UC Davis and the campus is

totally diversified. It may be possible that this kids current high school is fully accredited. I'm hoping that when it's time my daughter will attend UC Davis or Berkley.

[meganmonkey]

12. Sounds to me that this has nothing to do with his 'beliefs'

it is about his lack of adequete education. That is all.

I agree with the above poster who said that by limiting your education in HS to a Christian 'viewpoint', you are limited in where you can go to college. How can you handle Biology 101 if you never studied evolution, or genetics, or whatever else Intelligent Design overrides?

[pfitz59]

13. I used to read apps from Xian graduates....

Bible History ... "A"
Bible Oratory ... "A"
Geography of the Holy Land .... "A"
Etc, etc......

Only bias is skewed toward logic and sanity. Why should schools accept insane Xian slime?

[depakid]

14. Poor persecuted Fundy Christians

They SHOULD be held to account in this case. If their classes don't match up to accreditation- then, oh well- that's THEIR CHOICE for attending that school and taking those classes.

Take some "personal responsibility" and go to community college and make them up- LIKE ANYONE ELSE WOULD BE REQUIRED TO.

Why should so called Christians get special rights?

And why should universities admit students who lack the prerequisite classes (and quite possibly the ability to think critically?).

The US is falling way behind the rest of the world in science and technology because of this foolishness- and its high time that universities took a stand on the issue.

[Crunchy Frog]

18. If fundy Christians don't get special rights

over and above what everyone else gets, they think they're being persecuted. It's as simple as that.

[Gyre]

15. I'm sure they're just too effin' dumb

to get accepted the old-fashioned way; test scores. And they're pissed about being told they don't qualify as even being in the top 10% of the state. :)

Gyre

[Maat]

17. O.K. DUers, guess who lives in Murrieta, California ...

Fundamentalist Church Central in Southern California?

I'll give you a hint ... I just wanted to buy a nice home for a good price near my kid's school (a friend teaches there, and helps Beloved Daughter along). Poor, poor pitiful me ..

Seriously, believe or not, we have a pretty big Democracy for America group here.

But, anyway ... my dentist sends his kids to this Calvary Murrieta school (they have five, three of school age).

[Starbucks Anarchist]

30. Rick Warren?

[Maat]

43. HeeHee.

Rick is about an hour and a half away in the El Toro/Mission Viejo area. He is directly west of me (about an hour), then maybie a bit north (10 minutes). There's the Cleveland National Forest, with its mountainous road (Hwy 74) between us.

Rick wants to play both sides of the fence, in my humble opinion; he wants to be a mainstream motivational speaker, and also belong, along with his church, in the Southern Baptist Convention (the most hardright denominational administrative body around).

I told my father-in-law, "Don't bother sending me his book."

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. Here's a list of mandatory textbooks from Calvary Chapel Christian School

Neighboring Faiths

Family Life Skills for Christian Schools

Economics for Christ. Schools

Amer. Gov't. for Chr. Schools

U.S.History for Christian Schools

Behold your God

Health for Christian School

World History for Christian Schools

Inner Man, Positive Action for Christ

The Life of Christ, Positive Action

Am. Republic for Christian Schools (this is a History book)

Saxon Math 87 (a Christian Math book)

[daleo]

22. A Christian math book?

How's that work? Heavy on the transcendental functions? Maybe a certain emphasis on imaginary numbers. Avoid all that "secular trend analysis" in statistics.

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. There is a whole series of them

and they really suck. 100 problems on a page. No teaching, just practice problems.

[daleo]

27. Math ought to beyond dogma

I always like the God is a mathematician idea, myself. It just shows how some people love to control other peoples' every thought, I guess.

[proud2BlibKansan]

33. yeah you got the idea

Most of this Christian curriculum is like that. Keep the student busy. All the learning is put on the learner. The teacher can sit there and read a book while the student does rote exercises. And damn that independent thinking; you do what you are told.

[mitchum]

26. 2+2=5...because Robertson and Dobson say so?

[Celeborn Skywalker]

28. Saxon is Christian?

Really? I had those in Jr. High and I actually thought they were pretty good. Instead of giving you just problems from that lesson, they gave problems from previous lessons too so you wouldn't forget them. I didn't really notice a Christian bias, though.

[proud2BlibKansan]

34. They are very popular with

fundie home schoolers. They most likely publish several different lines of textbooks. But they do have a reputation for rote drill in Math and little instruction or guided practice.

[mitchum]

21. Jesus wept, but these crybabies never stop bawling

[Blue_Tires]

25. that kid would be out of place in Berkley, anyway

he should try Bob Jones, Regent, Liberty, etc.

[Pharlo]

31. Mr. Young's lawsuit should be against his parents and his HS

Based upon what I have read here, the problem is not the UC, but rather his own lack of preparedness and the unaccredited education he was exposed to under his parents guardianship and the preparatory education he was not offered at the HS of their choice.

Q: How many serious ivy league college bound HS grads wait until they are refused admission to the college of their choice before reviewing the admissions standards of the college they applied to for prep course acceptance?


A: None who hope to get admitted.

Mr. Young should be kicking his own ass for educational negligence, not suing the UC. I don't know about anyone else, but I started worrying about class acceptance/compatibility as a junior - and that was a LATE start, but I was expecting to go to a two year extension site and then transfer to a four year branch of the UW system. I was very fortunate that I was accepted into the 4 year college of my choice.

Q: What type of HS administration does not concern themselves with class accreditation to mainstream colleges and universities?

A: Administrations more concerned with high admission fees than the actual education of their students.

Q: What type of parents knowingly send their children to a high school without checking out class accreditation to mainstream colleges and universities?

A: Parents who don't care about their child's continuing education.


No, this problem is not the result of a discriminatory practice on the part of the UC, it's a result of educational negligence on the part of Mr. Young, his parents, and the administration of the High School he attended.

AND, if they want to claim it was religious persecution, I think the UC should use the defense that "OBVIOUSLY, Mr. Young, his parents, the administration of his high school and everyone in their congregation did NOT PRAY hard enough for his acceptance to the UC. Because, as POWERFUL as the UC may be, surely these fine Christians aren't promoting the HERESY that the UC is more powerful than GOD!!!

[BiggJawn]

32. UC should claim "Well, it's GAWD'S WILL that you weren't accepted..."

Oh, they of Little Faith.
Prehaps Gawd had something better planned for young Mr. Young than that hell-hole of independent thought, UC?

[AngryAmish]

37. The KKKristians do not deserve to go to college

The less they are allowed to do the better.

[northzax]

38. bad luck, hoss

the UC system publishes the standards for admission, it's your responsiblity to meet them, not theirs to meet yours.

by the way, the system has taken 18 students from this school in the last few years, so it is possible to put together a curriclum at the school that meets UC admissions standards. It's really that simple. If you are not at an accredited school, it is your responsibility to take classes that the college or university of your choice will accept, not take them first and then complain that they weren't accepted.

Gee, I remember sitting with my parents and college counselor (My dad is a college counselor) as an incoming sophmore and planning out the right classes to take. Of course, at prep school, there weren't that many options, but I had a plan, I knew which classes I needed to take, and which ones I wanted to take, and how to combine the two to present my best foot forward as a senior. Yes, I changed it as I went, but the general rule existed.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

39. Let me be a surgeon! I believe the brain isn't necessary...only the soul

But in that class I totally got an A

[northzax]

40. no, it's more like

let me be a surgeon, I haven't taken biology, but I'm sure I'll be good at it.

[MichaelHarris]

41. the colleges are not

discrediting courses that emphasize Christianity, they are scrutinizing courses that don't teach dick about math, natural sciences, and political sciences.


"his teachers and his family fear his beliefs may hurt his chance to attend the university"

Here's a thought for these guys, wait til you get denied admission before you start suing everyone. About the only thing this guy learned in high school was how to vote republican.

Let his ass take engineering at Bob Jones U. That way if a building falls down he designed he can say, "It was God's will"

[yellowcanine]

44. Parents shouldn't send their kids to schools that teach crappy science and

then expect that colleges should just accept those courses. The kid should blame his parents for making such poor choices for him.

[NoodleBoy]

45. Uh... did this kid apply and get rejected or something?

Really, he has no case unless he did and he can prove that he met the requirements.