Anti-Bias Resolution Questioned

Orange County Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s effort to put the House of Representatives on record as opposing discrimination against Asian-Americans in university admissions has run into resistance from an unexpected source--Asian-Americans.

In a letter published this week in the Los Angeles newspaper Rafu Shimpo, Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento) attacked the Lomita Republican’s sponsorship of the anti-discrimination legislation. Rohrabacher’s 42nd Congressional District includes northwestern Orange County.

The resolution suggests that some of the country’s top colleges have limited the number of Asian-Americans they admit in order to maintain racially balanced student populations, and that many of the Asian-Americans who are not admitted actually are superior candidates.

“It’s hard to argue with the wording of the resolution, but much skepticism has revolved around its source and his intentions,” Matsui wrote, calling the Rohrabacher effort “ . . . a misguided and inappropriate attempt to exploit the problem and perhaps chip away at a program that benefits all minorities.”

At the heart of the issue, a Matsui aide said, is Rohrabacher’s reluctance to include in his resolution language “saying that this is not an affront to affirmative action programs. That’s the origin of the opposition to this bill.”

The aide, Steve Oddo, said groups such as the Japanese American Citizens League recently have announced opposition to the measure on similar grounds.

In a statement released in response to Matsui’s letter, Rohrabacher said: “Congressman Matsui’s attack . . . impedes progress in finding and eliminating such discrimination; and, in taking an unwarranted swipe at me, it threatens to overwhelm a nonpartisan issue in partisan politics.”

In an interview Thursday, Rohrabacher added: “The fundamental problem here is that I am coming at this problem from a conservative Republican approach, and he’s coming at it from a liberal Democratic approach. . . . The liberal Democrats always look at this (problem) as, ‘Let’s get behind closed doors and make a bunch of deals based . . . on people’s race. . . . The answer is not to cut a bunch of deals but to demand equal justice for all.”

So far, Rohrabacher has persuaded 73 members of the 435 members of the House to co-sponsor the resolution, but an aide said that the Matsui opposition has prompted at least three Democrats who had signed up to change their minds.

While the resolution would have largely symbolic value, Rohrabacher has attached special importance to it. In a related matter, the congressman successfully included provisions in an appropriations bill for the Department of Education that require the department to hasten its investigation of discrimination against Asian-Americans on several college campuses.