Discrimination and Racial Quotas

In response to “Errant Measures of Merit?” (by Clarence Page, Commentary, April 30):

When rich, white Dan Quayle was admitted to law school in place of a far more qualified, but poorer applicant, the merit system that should govern all admissions to higher education broke down. That wrong cannot be used to justify the current widespread disgrace on our college campuses--preferential admissions based on the color of one’s skin or sex.

Let’s face facts and stop hiding behind euphemisms. If blacks with test scores lower than whites are being admitted to law school, it is not because their “life experience” is more meaningful. It is simply a question of skin color. And the whites with the higher test scores and grades who are denied admission are victims of government-sanctioned racism, so-called “affirmative action.”

Unfortunately, because preferential treatment is entrenched in unaccountable bureaucracies at both state and federal levels, it will require either courageous political action or intervention by an enlightened Supreme Court to end this hypocritical civil rights injustice.

I can only hope our government is forced to play fair with all of its citizens before my children apply for college. Because, to their discredit, by an accident of birth they are all Jewish and white, and only two of four are female.

HYATT SELIGMAN, Orange