Berkeley accused of bias after banning students from risky areas

The University of California at Berkeley was criticised yesterday for refusing to take students from Sars hot-spots on its summer programmes.

Asian-American civil rights groups and public health officials accused Berkeley of bowing to hysteria and said the ban discriminated against hundreds of students who posed no health risk.

No other US university has taken this step. "This policy excludes people from educational opportunities based only on their country of origin," a group called Chinese for Affirmative Action said. California's Department of Health Services also wondered if Berkeley had gone too far. About 400 students from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China are banned until the next academic year.

Berkeley says it faces special circumstances; it works on a semester rather than a trimester system, so its programme starts a month earlier than most institutions'. It says it might not be able to quarantine students because of a shortage of space.