Affirmative action faces fresh threat

Edward Helmore in Los Angeles wonders whether colleges can afford to reverse positive discrimination policies; 'People don't understand that affirmative action benefits us all. If it falls, it will hurt us all'

The University of California, hotbed of left-wing radicalism in the Sixties, has become the battleground for the right's campaign against affirmative action. Its regents were to decide last night whether the university should reverse the policy of positive discrimination which favours applicants from minority groups.

Because California is one of the largest and most diverse states in the US, what happens at the meeting is likely to push the national debate over preferences and fairness to a new level.

Pete Wilson, the California Governor who has made the dismantling of the programme the centrepiece of his Republican presidential campaign, exercised his right to chair the meeting. The proposal to drop affirmative action hiring policies and take race out of student admission criteria was put forward in January by Ward Connerly, a wealthy black property developer on the university's board. Mr Connerly, a friend of Mr Wilson's, suggested that the University of California should no longer use "race, religion, gender, colour, ethnicity or national origin" as criteria unless applicants can prove such factors have been a barrier to success. "Today we're not as institutionally racist as we were in 1965," he said. "The policy devalues the black person who gets up every morning and works and excels."

Between 40 and 60 per cent of students are admitted on the basis of academic criteria alone. The remainder are admitted on scholarships and on the basis of other factors, such as geographic location, ethnicity, gender and special talents. No student is supposed to be admitted on gender alone.

The new proposals would increase the proportion of students admitted solely on academic performance to between 50 and 75 per cent. On the nine- campus university, the debate has stirred emotions. On Wednesday night students camped out at UC San Francisco, where the meeting was due to be held.

More than 1,000 students and other demonstrators have already converged on the campus and university police from around the state have been flown in to help maintain order.

Republicans have attacked Bill Clinton for his "mend it, not end it" stance over affirmative action delivered in a speech on Wednesday. "Instead of clarity he has chosen confusion," said Bob Dole, the Senate Majority leader.

Mr Wilson, one of the first to seize the nettle of what promises to become a central issue in the 1996 presidential elections, attacked Mr Clinton's commitment to maintain the programme with federal funding. "He's trying to keep in place a system that will contain the virus that threatens to tribalise America and divide it," he said. "Government should not be dividing its citizens by race and gender.''

The Rev Jesse Jackson, in San Francisco to take part in the meeting, accused Mr Wilson of "race-baiting" and has promised to lead protests.

"We plan to act in the spirit of Martin Luther King, of Gandhi,of Nelson Mandela ... to offer our bodies as human sacrifice, " he said.

Mr Jackson said the problems with affirmative action was not with the concept but with its enforcement, and feared that if eliminated on a state level, it would undo the gains achieved since the Sixties.

"People are scared," said Diana Frappier, a 23-year law student at the university. "People don't understand that affirmative action benefits us all and if it falls, it's going to hurt us all.''