Ouch! I still think that there is a difference between students who were accepted based on fraudulent applications materials, and those who were accepted, despite not really qualifying, because they had a LoR from somebody big.
Moreover, the fact that, evidently, athletes are being accepted with this same ratings, means that the ratings are meaningless.
If they thought that ratings this low means that these students cannot succeed at the college, then athletes are being recruited to play and fail, or they are being allowed to stay in college and to graduate through fraudulent practices.
If, on the other hand, they think that students with such low ratings can succeed as well as any other student, these rating mean absolutely nothing.
The main educational mission of the University of California campuses is to provide education to students from California. They can only justify rating students if those ratings indicate the suitability of these students to the college. If “suitability” is not primarily “the chances that the students will succeed”, that means that they are failing their main mission, and doing so miserably.