UCLA’s Response to Today’s Indictments

Campus Update

Chancellor Block sent the following message to the UCLA campus community.

Earlier today, I was shocked and angered to learn that dozens of individuals have been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with paying or accepting bribes in exchange for admission to several top American universities, including UCLA.

UCLA’s men’s soccer head coach, Jorge Salcedo, was named in the indictment and immediately placed on leave pending a review by the university. An employee of Geffen Academy was also named in the indictment, but not in connection with her duties at UCLA, and similarly placed on leave.

Today’s indictment makes clear that UCLA, like the other universities, was the victim of an alleged crime. The indictment also asserts that the individuals accused of these crimes worked to conceal their actions from UCLA and the other universities. We will fully cooperate with federal authorities as this case moves forward. We will also perform a detailed internal review to ensure proper controls are in place to prevent any repeat of these actions in the future.

As a public university, UCLA is absolutely committed to ensuring that every applicant is considered purely on their merits without any consideration of financial, political or other benefits to the university, in keeping with policy set by the University of California Board of Regents. UCLA cannot and will not tolerate anything less.

Honesty, integrity and fairness are core values at UCLA and admission to UCLA is a notable accomplishment that cannot be bought by any individual, no matter how wealthy, prominent or powerful. Once here, our students work extraordinarily hard to fulfill the highest standards of academic and athletic excellence.

We remain absolutely committed to an institution that values inclusion, diversity, merit and accomplishment, without exception. We owe that to everyone who shares our dedication to producing the world-class research, teaching and service that have brought this community so much pride.