AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN COLLEGE ADMISSIONS IS GOOD FOR US ALL

Why are many Americans -- white Americans, mostly -- so upset about college admissions programs that take race into account for a handful of students whose test scores are slightly below standards? Why are programs that boost the chances of black and brown students so controversial, while similar programs that benefit white students go without notice?

For example, the country's premier colleges and universities have long reserved places for the lesser-achieving children of their well-heeled graduates and donors. At the University of Georgia, family connections are one of the dozen or so factors -- along with race -- used to assess about 20 percent of its applicants who don't quite meet academic standards. In other words, a kid whose test scores and grades are not quite good enough may get into Georgia anyway if his mom or dad is a graduate.

That practice allows weaker students -- most of them white -- to be admitted at the expense of better students. Yet no one bemoans it as an assault on the vaunted "meritocracy."

College admissions also grant athletic "preferences," a device that happens to benefit many kids -- black, white and brown -- who otherwise could not get near their chosen college. For some reason, a black kid with low SATs who can score touchdowns and generate a lot of money for the university is not nearly as offensive as a black kid with low scores who just wants an education.

To be fair, some criticism of college admissions efforts is legitimate. Awarding scholarships based on race makes no sense, since they would often end up giving financial aid to the black upper-middle-class but not to the white poor. Besides that, poorly run affirmative-action programs, such as the contracting set-aside program run by the city of Atlanta, tend to generate resentments that splash over onto better-run and more necessary programs.

But much criticism of affirmative action in college admissions is based on myth, misunderstanding and -- how shall I say this? -- simple bigotry. Affirmative-action programs exist only in 25 percent to 40 percent of the nation's institutions of higher learning; the other 60 percent to 75 percent accept all applicants. So the controversy centers around the nation's most prestigious institutions.

Admission to those elite colleges is highly competitive, because a diploma from Harvard or Emory nearly guarantees a financially rewarding career. Rejected white applicants, looking for an explanation for their failure, often believe they were unfairly supplanted by an unqualified minority student.

Consider, however, an analogy used by Thomas Kane of the Brookings Institution, likening affirmative action in colleges to the handicapped parking space:

"Eliminating the reserved space would have only a minuscule effect on parking options for non-disabled drivers. But the sight of the open space will frustrate many passing motorists who are looking for a space. Many are likely to believe that they would now be parked if the space were not reserved."

Scaling back affirmative action would cripple the prospects for black participation in this nation's economic, political and social elite. William Bowen, former president of Princeton University, and Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University, recently conducted a landmark study of affirmative action at 28 elite institutions, including Atlanta's Emory University. They found that black graduates of those colleges go on to earn advanced degrees -- medicine, law, MBAs -- at slightly higher rates than their white counterparts, and also became more active in civic affairs.

Because America proffers advancement through education, programs to enhance educational opportunities for students of color remain critical -- perhaps more important than any other form of affirmative action. Since my grandfathers would not have been admitted to white universities, it does not seem unreasonable to create a form of "legacy" for their descendants.