LOCAL VIEW: SENDING UC BACK TO SCHOOL ON PREFERENCES; CAMPUSES SHOULD TAKE FOREGROUND IN FORMING ENROLLMENT FAIR TO ALL.

Byline: Walter J. Deal

THE U.S. Supreme Court has upheld that Proposition 209 and the University of California Board of Regents' resolution forbidding racial preferences will go into effect. Now, can California achieve the goals of affirmative action without using racial and gender preferences?

We'll see if the advocates of affirmative action can stop whining, drop the idea of massive resistance (unless they want to identify themselves with the tactics of George Wallace) and behave like grown-ups to develop methods to achieve diversity without unfairness.

In particular, what the University of California does is likely to be the model for the rest of California, and perhaps for the country. The goals can be achieved - this is a no-brainer - the question is whether the leaders want to solve problems or to advance themselves. Unfortunately, this question is probably also a no-brainer.

A reminder of the dubious accomplishments of affirmative action in the University of California: After 25 or so years of affirmative action, about 80 percent of UC professors are white and 80 percent are male; about 4 percent of UC students are African-American and 13 percent are Latino, in each case less than half their percentage among California high school graduates.

Racial preferences gave advantages to people like the son of a UC vice president and Erik Menendez; and female set-aside jobs were used for the spouses of heavy hitters in the UC system. It's been hard to understand allegiance of nonwealthy minority students to policies that did little for them.

So what's a better policy? Almost anything, or even nothing, is the flip answer. If fewer under-represented minority students are admitted to the UCs, maybe there will be a serious look at priorities in predominantly minority school districts. This may be the hidden agenda of UC administrators and faculty as they tinker with the old policies.

As an example: To a good statistical fit, admissions decisions for UC law and medical schools were based on grade point averages, standardized test scores (MCAT and LSAT) and race. Under-represented minority applicants received a ``bump'' worth about 0.5 GPA points and 25 percentile points on the MCAT or LSAT. So a black applicant with a B average and in the 50th percentile on the LSAT was regarded as essentially equal for law school admissions to an Asian with an A- average and in the 75th percentile.

With race regarded as a factor, and with no other changes, there will be an easily predictable drop in the number of minority students admitted to professional schools.

However, it's important to realize that the admissions policies that produced this fiasco were set up by UC administrators and faculty, not by David Duke and Jesse Helms. And the administrators and faculty bear the responsibility for the results and the social consequences of the policies they develop; the admissions' buck stops on UC President Richard Atkinson's desk.

Are there alternatives to these policies? Of course. Any number of sensible ideas have been advanced, and that's before turning loose the inventiveness of UC faculty and students by making it politically acceptable to advocate anything except the status quo ante.

At the undergraduate level, it's been suggested that the top five or 10 or some other reasonable number of seniors at each high school be admitted to the UC system, a fine idea, especially if coupled with increased tutoring and financial aid.

The best idea so far involves some form of a lottery, for both undergraduate and professional school admissions, an idea advocated in various forms by a number of people. The version I like involves admitting one-third of the students strictly from a list rank-ordered by qualifications, one-third from a random lottery among all the applicants who meet the minimum qualifications, and one-third from a weighted lottery in which applicants' chances of being chosen are increased if their qualifications and personal qualities are relatively high. There are even statistical arguments that this would represent a more equitable system than what's done now (something about the standard deviation of performance predicted by test scores).

Fine-tuning the percentages, adjusting the weighing, and even adding the factors like geography can lead to a pool of admitted students that reasonably reflects the pool of qualified applicants in terms of race, gender, etc. This is, of course, what affirmative action is supposed to be about.

Lottery-type systems aren't rocket science: and they can be applied to police departments, etc., where there is a large pool of qualified applicants and a reasonably large number of positions.

So it's utter nonsense to say that diversity can't be achieved without racial preferences. If the UC minority enrollment plummets, it won't be because of Proposition 209 or the UC Board of Regents. It will be because the UC leadership followed the model of the white leadership in Alabama and Mississippi in the 1960s, who chose to play to their constituencies and denounce outside interference rather than to lead.