(AgapePress) - A conservative activist says California's public university system is once again using race as a factor in its admissions policy.

In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 209, which did away with racial preferences in admissions. David Gersten is executive director of the Center for Equal Opportunity. He says the University of California is ignoring the law in a unseemly manner and is back to using race as a factor in admitting first-year students.

Gersten says UC's "comprehensive review" policy allows admissions officials to increase an applicant's chances for being accepted based on past adversity described in student essays. "They are encouraging everyone to submit 'sob story' essays detailing how they have overcome hardship in their high school years to gain entrance," he says. "But unfortunately, the acceptance of these hardship stories depends on what race you are."

Gersten says by creating this essay system, the university has prevented any outside observer from examining the admissions process to see if it is truly race-neutral.

"In principle, there's nothing wrong with a school considering hardship in its admission decisions, provided that it's race-neutral," he says. "Certainly there is a sense of character-building for an applicant still living at home having to overcome some hardship, and that should be allowed to be used as a factor -- as long as it's race-neutral."

Gersten cites a case involving a young Korean applicant who was rejected by both Berkeley and UCLA, despite achieving a 1500 on his SAT College Admissions exam, and working after school jobs while his mother was battling cancer. Meanwhile, a young Hispanic applicant with a similar background scored just over 1100 on her SAT and was accepted by both schools.

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