Rohrabacher Seeks Anti-Asian College Admissions Probe

Recalling bias against Jews at American universities in the 1920s, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Lomita) introduced a resolution in the House on Thursday calling for a federal investigation of modern discrimination against Asian-American college applicants.

“A group of our citizens is working hard, they’re striving, they’re supporting their families’ efforts in education and thus they are succeeding and they are victims of envy,” Rohrabacher said at a Capitol Hill press conference.

“We can’t put up with that. This is what happened to the Jews in the 1920s and 1930s in this country, and we shouldn’t let it be repeated today.”

The resolution, co-sponsored by Rep. Patricia F. Saiki (R-Hawaii), was introduced against a backdrop of growing allegations that some of the nation’s top schools, including branches of the University of California, have systematically sought to limit enrollment of qualified Asian-Americans to maintain an ethnic mix.

Rohrabacher, whose 42nd Congressional District stretches from Torrance along the coast to Huntington Beach, cited an internal memorandum written by the admissions director at UCLA that stated that the school would “endeavor to curb the decline of Caucasian students,” and a recent acknowledgement by the chancellor of UC Berkeley that admissions policies had cut the undergraduate enrollment of Asian-Americans.

Rohrabacher said the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars colleges from limiting admissions based on race. However, universities can curtail overall enrollment in particular academic programs, such as premed, even if the programs are dominated by a particular ethnic group.

Ron Kolb, a spokesman for the 161,500-student University of California system, said that in recent years: “We have been tinkering with the admissions practices to try to accommodate and fairly judge everyone who wants to get in here, and we have made mistakes. However, we feel we have (now) achieved an equitable system of judgment. . . . We do not feel there is any bias against any group.”

Rohrabacher’s measure, co-sponsored by 20 Republicans and two Democrats, calls for the Justice Department and the Department of Education to launch probes of any colleges and universities against which discrimination allegations emerge.

The Education Department is already examining admission policies at Harvard University and UCLA to determine if such discrimination has occurred, a department spokesman said.

“If sufficient information about other institutions that may have a problem comes our way, we will schedule additional . . . reviews,” said Gary Curran, spokesman for the Education Department’s office for civil rights.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said Rohrabacher’s resolution “sounds to be consistent with what the department is currently doing.”

Chang-Lin Tien, executive vice chancellor of UC Irvine, said no questions have been posed about the 16,000-student school’s admission policies. “So far, we have not had any accusations,” he said.

In fact, Tien said, UC Irvine has the largest population of Asian-American undergraduates of any of the UC system’s nine campuses. While Asian-Americans constitute only 16.8% of undergraduates throughout the UC system, they account for 33.5% of the undergraduate population at UC Irvine.

While the college admission process is the focus of his resolution, Rohrabacher said he is even more disturbed by evidence that increasing trade tensions with Japan and other Asian nations are creating general animosity toward citizens of Asian descent.

Trade issues must be viewed as separate and distinct, said the congressman, who himself has strongly opposed the Bush Administration’s deal to jointly manufacture the FSX fighter plane with Japan. Rohrabacher contends the deal ultimately will hurt the American aerospace industry.

“I had some discussions back in California that I was very shocked about,” Rohrabacher said, referring to exchanges with constituents.

“It shocked my system to have people telling me that these Asian-Americans, they’re taking over our schools, they’re taking over our land,” Rohrabacher said.

“I think it’s time we go on record,” he added. “The Asian-American community puts a high value on education, and for them to think they’re going to be denied educational opportunities because they try too hard is a travesty, it’s a slap in their face. We should make sure we don’t put up with it.”

Appearing at a press conference along with Rohrabacher were Rep. C. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), Rep. Duncan Lee Hunter (R-Coronado) and Rep. Ben Blaz (R-Guam), all members of the Republican Research Committee, which helped draft the resolution.

Hunter, who heads the group, said the Republican committee will hold hearings on the issue on both the West and East coasts within a month or two.

Kolb, the UC spokesman, said the UCLA memo referred to by Rohrabacher, written several years ago, “was a thought from an individual for consideration and was rejected. . . . That had nothing to do with policy.”

At Berkeley, Kolb said, the chancellor “acknowledged that a change in admission policies seemed to inordinately affect Asians, but he added that there was no indication . . . that there was bias involved.”