Colorblind? Not yet.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Higher education in the United States ought to be a meritocracy. Opponents of affirmative action had that ideal in mind when they challenged race-based admissions criteria in two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Defenders of affirmative action embrace the same ideal, while acknowledging the reality that standard measures of performance and potential place members of some racial groups at a disadvantage. The court would do neither higher education nor the country a favor by choosing to ignore that reality.

The current legal status of affirmative action was settled in a carefully balanced 1978 decision upholding race-based college admissions but prohibiting racial quotas. Allan Bakke, a white medical school applicant, sued the University of California for having reserved 16 of 100 places for members of minority groups. The court rejected that numerical quota and ordered that Bakke be admitted. But it also ruled that the government has a "compelling state interest" in a racially diverse system of higher education, and that schools can take race into account as part of a "properly devised admissions program."

The University of Michigan has attempted to devise such a program. Its law school admits students not only on the basis of grades and test scores, but also on the basis of "soft variables" such as unusual achievements, personal background and non-academic performance. In undergraduate admissions, the university awards up to 20 out of 150 points for non-academic factors, including membership in an underrepresented minority group. White students who were denied admission sued, claiming both the law school and undergraduate admissions processes violated their right to equal protection under the law.

Members of minority groups plainly benefit from such admissions policies. University of Michigan officials estimate that a race-blind admissions system would result in a student body in which fewer than 3 percent of students were black or Hispanic. As it is, just over 11 percent are members of those groups. To critics of affirmative action, these figures suggest that 8 percent of applicants, most of them white, are the victims of reverse discrimination.

Yet if universities abridge applicants' right to equal protection under the law by reaching out to enroll more students from certain racial groups, affirmative action would not be the only policy vulnerable to legal challenge. Schools might also find themselves in trouble when they grant preference to the children of alumni, attempt to balance admissions from rural and urban areas, favor applicants on the basis of their athletic ability, or make allowances for students who graduate from poor high schools. Among the range of special admissions practices, only affirmative action has come under consistent legal attack.

Underlying this attack is the belief that the struggle for racial equality ended with the approval of federal laws against racial discrimination. Indeed, critics say, affirmative action perpetuates discrimination by devaluing the achievements of minority groups and shifting the effects of unfair treatment from one group to another.

The United States, however, has a long way to go before it can claim to be a colorblind society. Public schools have become more racially segregated in recent decades. The gap between white and minority students' achievement persists. The barriers to academic success confronted by young blacks and Hispanics remain high. Unless the critics of affirmative action are prepared to argue that these conditions are the result of inherent differences between racial groups, they should be willing to face the cruel facts of minorities' continuing disadvantages.

They should also acknowledge that the nation has a strong interest in erasing those disadvantages. The conditions that impede the academic progress of some minority groups cause a colossal waste of human resources. Affirmative action, by attempting to compensate for these disadvantages in college admissions, puts education to work in pursuit of the goal of true equality of opportunity. That goal will remain out of reach unless all segments of the population have equal access to education. The Supreme Court should affirm its reasoning of a quarter of a century ago, and uphold affirmative action as an appropriate means of striving toward a colorblind society.