Supporters of tests like the SAT and ACT say they provide a uniform way of judging students from different schools and backgrounds but should be used in combination with other factors.

A group of students and advocacy groups says the standardized testing requirement is biased and unconstitutional.

University of California Is Sued Over Use of SAT and ACT in Admissions

A coalition of students, advocacy groups and a largely black and Hispanic California school district filed suit against the University of California system on Tuesday to stop it from using standardized test scores in its admissions. The move, if successful, could shake up the testing industry and radically reshape college admissions.

The plaintiffs say the college entrance tests, the SAT and ACT, are biased against poor and mainly black and Hispanic students. By basing admissions decisions on those tests, they say, the system illegally discriminates against applicants on the basis of their race, wealth and disability, and denies them equal protection under the California Constitution.

“It is illegal wealth and race discrimination that damages the futures of tens of thousands of deserving students each year, who could excel at U.C. campuses of their choice,” said Mark Rosenbaum, directing attorney at the nonprofit Public Counsel, which is representing some of the plaintiffs.

They argue that the use of standardized tests has led to the creation of a vast test-prep industry that privileges affluent families who can afford to send their children to tutoring. Other measures — like grades and teacher recommendations — would provide a fairer way of judging students, the plaintiffs say.

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Supporters of the tests say they provide a uniform way of judging students from different schools and backgrounds, but should not be used alone.

The litigation comes as the University of California system is already embroiled in a debate over whether to continue using the tests to judge about 200,000 high school students who apply to its nine undergraduate schools each year. A work group is currently studying whether the ACT and SAT should be a required element for admission; its report is due next year.

More than 1,000 colleges and universities across the country have already made standardized test scores optional, according to FairTest, an advocacy group that wants to do away with the tests and that consulted on the litigation.

The University of Chicago, a top-ranked school, announced last year that it was going test-optional. This fall it reported that as a result of the new policy, along with more financial aid, outreach and mentoring, the entering class of 2019-20 had 24 percent more first-generation and low-income students and 56 percent more rural students than the previous year. About 10 percent of applicants did not submit test scores, a spokesman said.

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But the plaintiffs are seeking to go beyond test-optional policies and to bar students from submitting test scores even if they want to, according to Mr. Rosenbaum.

“There is no such thing as race-discrimination-optional, there is no such thing as wealth-discrimination-optional,” Mr. Rosenbaum said. “It’s time that we cut that out of the process altogether.”

Mr. Rosenbaum said that a test ban by the University of California, one of the biggest and most prestigious public systems in the country, would be such a powerful sea change that other systems would follow suit.

Several studies have suggested that grades may be a better measure of college success than test scores are. One by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research found that high school grades correlated strongly and consistently with college graduation, while the correlation between graduation and ACT scores was weak.

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Another study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, questioned the conventional wisdom that standardized tests are more reliable than grades from schools of different quality. It found that high-school grade point average was “consistently the best predictor” of cumulative college grades and graduation.

The makers of the ACT and SAT said on Tuesday that the plaintiffs had created a straw man by blaming the tests for inequality in society and education.

“The notion that the SAT is discriminatory is false,” said a spokesman for the College Board, which administers the SAT.

The spokesman said that it had made a concerted effort to remove bias from the test and that the test had evolved from an aptitude test nearly a century ago to a test of “skills and concepts” necessary for college work.

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Marten Roorda, chief executive of ACT, said: “It is inappropriate to blame admissions testing for inequities in society. We don’t fire the doctor or throw away the thermometer when an illness has been diagnosed. Differences in test scores expose issues that need to be fixed in our educational system.”

Kawika Smith, a high school senior in Los Angeles and one of the plaintiffs, said his test results had forced him to reconsider his dream of going to U.C.L.A. or Berkeley, and to apply to test-optional East Coast schools instead. He said he was underprepared for the test because he could not afford expensive tutoring.

He had a weighted G.P.A. of 3.56 and scored 1140 on the PSAT, but his scores declined as he took additional practice tests.

He spoke of experiences he had overcome that were not reflected by his test results — being raped, homelessness, the death of his brother. He said he had persevered and become a community organizer and advocate for people like him.

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“While taking the SATs, I kept questioning whether I was intelligent enough,” Kawika said.

California has struggled to maintain diversity at the top levels of its university system since voters adopted a ban on affirmative action in 1996. The freshman class systemwide this year is 34 percent Latino, 35 percent Asian-American, 22 percent white and 5 percent African-American.

The plaintiffs said that the racial disparities in the state’s test scores were stark. More than 260,000 California students who graduated from high school in 2018 took the test. Of those, 44 percent of white students and 53 percent of Asian-American students scored 1200 or above, compared with 10 percent of African-American students and 12 percent of Hispanic students, according to the College Board.

Carol Christ, the chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, one of the system’s most competitive universities, has expressed doubts about standardized tests like the SAT. She wrote of her “growing concern that the test does not provide a level playing field” in an alumni magazine article last summer.

For procedural reasons, lawyers said, the school district, in Compton, Calif., is filing one lawsuit and the rest of the plaintiffs are filing another. The lawsuits were filed in Alameda County Superior Court on Tuesday. The six advocacy groups are College Access Plan, Little Manila Rising, Dolores Huerta Foundation, College Seekers, Chinese for Affirmative Action and Community Coalition.

Jack Begg contributed research.

Anemona Hartocollis is a national correspondent, covering higher education. She is also the author of the book, “Seven Days of Possibilities: One Teacher, 24 Kids, and the Music That Changed Their Lives Forever.” @anemonanyc

Correction: Dec. 10, 2019 An earlier version of this article misstated the status of FairTest, an advocacy group, in the lawsuits against the University of California over standardized test requirements. While it worked with the legal team, it is not one of the plaintiffs in the suits. Dec. 10, 2019

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