The former University of California regent who wrote the measure that banned affirmative action in college admissions and public hiring in California, blasted the husband of Senator Dianne Feinstein for pulling strings to help certain applicants.
Longtime Regent Richard Blum admitted he’s the one singled out on the California State Auditor’s report on admissions, for writing letters to chancellors to pull strings for the children of friends or family.
Blum said he's done it for years, didn’t know it was against the rules and won’t do it anymore, even though he dismissed this week’s scandal as a bunch of nonsense.
Former Regent Ward Connerly said it’s nepotism, pure and simple.
“Peddling influence or using your position to benefit a friend or a relative – that isn’t right,” Connerly said. “The public institution should not be doing that. Admissions should be based on individual merit, individual merit. And, the fat cats who try to go around the system, call up someone, a regent who calls a chancellor and leans on the chancellor who leans on the admissions office – it's not the way the system should work.”
Connerly is trying to use this scandal to help defeat Proposition 16, which would repeal the ban on affirmative action he wrote and helped pass back in 1996.
UC is investigating the allegations in the state audit released this week.
Blum was not available for further comment.
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