THE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION DEBATE

Although I know that it's politically correct to be in favor of affirmative action programs for university admissions and in the workplace, I think such programs create more problems than they resolve. Sorry about that.

When the Bush administration intervened in the courts to support a challenge to University of Michigan affirmative action programs, the diversity lobby went ballistic, accusing President Bush of being a racist, and worse. This seems to me to be a classic overreaction. If you don't agree with the president, let the name-calling begin.

In the U.S. Supreme Court's famous 1978 Bakke decision, justices ruled that race can legally be a "plus" or "tipping" factor in close calls on university admissions. But, according to U.S. News & World Report columnist John Leo, "The universities didn't comply with that wording. Instead, they opted for broad and dishonest preference schemes designed to admit large numbers of non-Asian minorities, no matter what the courts said, and no matter how underqualified minority applicants happened to be." Two questions: Does that sound fair to you? And don't such programs discriminate against Asians and whites?

According to Leo, "The University of Michigan set up a preference system so clearly illegal that it was jettisoned soon after one professor ... forced it out into the open through a Freedom of Information Act request. In its place the university installed another odious system that gives 20-point bonuses on undergraduate admissions to all non-Asian minority applicants." By contrast, a perfect SAT score is worth only 12 points. So at Michigan, it's better to be a minority applicant than to be a brilliant student.

In a separate case, the Supreme Court will also rule this summer on preferences at the University of Michigan Law School, where race is worth more than one full grade point. Under this discriminatory system, not being white or Asian is more important than a 4.0 GPA. Leo predicted that the court will strike down Michigan's preferences as "quota systems in disguise." I sure hope so.

In their defense, Michigan and other universities present a "diversity" argument, contending that a "critical mass" of under-represented minorities is necessary so that blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans can speak out in class without fearing that their comments will be misinterpreted or taken out of context by the majority. But, Leo responds, "'Critical mass' sounds very much like 'quota' and it's not clear under the argument why students who are Welsh, Basque, Mormon or Baptist shouldn't get their own 'critical mass' on campus too." Nor is it clear why students of Laotian or Portuguese descent aren't eligible for preferences while anyone with a Spanish surname is. Does that mean that my son, Guy Farmer, who's half Aztec, is ineligible? Another good question.

Recently, the diversity lobby -- which profits from affirmative action -- cited an Associated Press survey allegedly showing that 80 percent of Americans think that colleges and universities should have diverse student bodies; however, only half of the AP respondents favored affirmative action to achieve diversity.

John Leo and his fellow affirmative action opponents immediately challenged those results. "When questions are fairly worded," he wrote, "poll after poll shows that huge majorities oppose preferences. In one survey, 92 percent of adults (including most blacks and Hispanics) said hiring, promotions and college admissions should be based strictly on merit and qualifications other than race/ethnicity."

In the words of Stuart Taylor Jr., a respected legal analyst at the National Journal, racial preferences "can only live on lies" because they offend the values of Americans of all races. In my opinion, such preferences are insulting to minorities because they're telling them that they can't make it in college or in the workplace without lowering academic or job standards. Remember when civil rights pioneer Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned a day in which his children would be judged on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin? I agree with him on this issue.

When I was in Seattle last month, I read a fervent defense of racial preferences by Seattle Times columnist Lynne Varner, who described herself as an "affirmative action baby."

"I got into college because I'm African-American," she wrote. "So what? It was better than being rejected from my college choice because I was black." Give me a break, Ms. Varner. If you went to college within the last 20 years, my guess is that you were admitted to your chosen college because you were academically qualified, rather than because you were black. Don't sell yourself short.

If we want to level the playing field for disadvantaged students -- and most of us do -- then let's do it on the basis of economic hardship, granting preferences to low-income students of proven academic achievement, those in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating classes, for example. But to base university admissions on skin color is racial discrimination, pure and simple. And that's an un-American idea.

Guy W. Farmer, a semi-retired journalist and former U.S. diplomat, resides in Carson City.