Bay Area
Barrier to Entry No More: UC Ends Use of SAT, ACT in Admissions, Scholarships
In a historic settlement, the UC Regents agreed they would eliminate the SAT and the ACT from admissions and scholarship decisions through 2025.

COMMENTARY
You don’t have to ask Stockton teenager Rain Romeo about standardized testing. We all know tests like the SAT/ACT are discriminatory in nature, failing to reflect a student’s real ability, and advantaging wealthier students who can afford extra tutoring to game the exam.
“I’m not just a score,” Romeo, a 17- year old Filipino American student told me this week on the phone. She was one of the students who had been asked to testify to the UC regents about the fairness and efficacy of standardized tests.
Last Friday, the major barrier to Romeo’s hopes and dreams was removed. In a historic settlement, the UC Regents agreed they would eliminate the SAT and the ACT from admissions and scholarship decisions through 2025.
UC had already figured that standardized tests were unfair last year, but let COVID-19 be the excuse to put a temporary halt on the tests only through 2022. The settlement now bans the test for another three years.
The suit should allow for a greater diversity of students of all backgrounds, but especially Black, Latinx, and Asian groups from less wealthy communities.
“I’m thrilled and so happy to hear the news,” Romeo told me. The tests had put enormous pressure on her life, creating anxiety and self-doubt.
“Coming from a low-income household and a community that is constantly overlooked, I have always felt like I wouldn’t attain success,” she said. “I always based my perceptions and my entire life thought process on these scores. I believed if my score wasn’t good enough, then I wasn’t good enough.”
Romeo immigrated to the U.S. with her family from the Philippines as a child in 2004. She has been active as a youth advocate with the Little Manila Rising group in Stockton. And she feels connected to her community, interested in building it up, not looking forward to leaving it behind. It’s a kind of ambition and drive that doesn’t show up in a standardized test.
“There’s more to me than what is seen on that piece of paper, and the number that score represents,” Romeo said. “I don’t want [admissions officers] to make an assumption or observation of me that they think is true based on a number.”
Romeo said she wanted colleges to see her for who she is and what her true potential represents. In Stockton, Romeo has overcome a lot. She’s a star student (weighted GPA around 4.3) in a neglected, low-income neighborhood, and would be the first in her family to go to college. In school, she studies debate, Honors English, Honors Physics, and is in student government, as well as a community volunteer with Little Manila Rising.
She also isn’t ambitious for a corporate life that would force her to leave her home. Instead, Romeo is ambitious for her community. Perhaps that is a quality colleges should find worth nurturing, as Romeo prepares to apply to UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Davis, where admissions will consider her uniqueness rather than her relative value to a made-up standard.
That makes the settlement good news for all young people who are overlooked and filtered out by that thing that has long been an admissions officer’s crutch–the SAT.
Students like Rain now have a chance to stand out and be seen, not by a number, but for who they are.
Emil Guillermo is a veteran Bay Area journalist and commentator. He vlogs at www.amok.com, FaceBook @emilguillermo.media
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of May 28 – June 30, 2025
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 28 – June 3, 2025

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Activism
Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of May 21 – 27, 2025

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Bay Area
Chevron Richmond Installs Baker Hughes Flare.IQ, Real-time Flare Monitoring, Control and Reduction System
While the sight of flaring can cause concern in the community, flares are essential safety systems that burn pollutants to prevent them from being released directly into the atmosphere. They activate during startup and shut-down of facility units or during upsets or equipment malfunctions. The typical flare stack is about 200 feet high so that vapors are well above street levels.

The Richmond Standard
Chevron Richmond recently installed flare.IQ, a real-time, automated system that will improve the facility’s flaring performance.
The technology, developed by Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business, uses sensors to monitor, reduce and control flaring in real time. It collects and assesses data on refinery processes, such as temperature, pressure, gas flow and gas composition, and adjusts accordingly to ensure flares burn more efficiently and cleanly, leading to fewer emissions.
“The cleaner the flare, the brighter the flame can look,” said Duy Nguyen, a Chevron Richmond flaring specialist. “If you see a brighter flame than usual on a flare, that actually means flare.IQ is operating as intended.”
While the sight of flaring can cause concern in the community, flares are essential safety systems that burn pollutants to prevent them from being released directly into the atmosphere. They activate during startup and shut-down of facility units or during upsets or equipment malfunctions. The typical flare stack is about 200 feet high so that vapors are well above street levels.
“A key element in Baker Hughes’ emissions abatement portfolio, flare.IQ has a proven track record in optimizing flare operations and significantly reducing emissions,” said Colin Hehir, vice president of Panametrics, a Baker Hughes business. “By partnering with Chevron Richmond, one of the first operators in North America to adopt flare.IQ, we are looking forward to enhancing the plant’s flaring operations.”
The installation of flare.IQ is part of a broader and ongoing effort by Chevron Richmond to improve flare performance, particularly in response to increased events after the new, more efficient hydrogen plant was brought online in 2019.
Since then, the company has invested $25 million — and counting — into flare minimization. As part of the effort, a multidisciplinary refinery team was formed to find and implement ways to improve operational reliability and ultimately reduce flaring. Operators and other employees involved in management of flares and flare gas recovery systems undergo new training.
“It is important to me that the community knows we are working hard to lower emissions and improve our flaring performance,” Nguyen said.
Also evolving is the process by which community members are notified of flaring incidents. The Community Warning System (CWS), operated by Contra Costa County is an “all-hazard” public warning system.
Residents can opt-in to receive alerts via text, e-mail and landline. The CWS was recently expanded to enable residents to receive notifications for “Level 1” incidents, which are considered informational as they do not require any community action.
For more information related to these topics, check out the resources included on the Chevron Richmond, CAER and Contra Costa Health websites. Residents are also encouraged to follow @chevronrichmond and @RFDCAOnline on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), where additional information may be posted during an incident.
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