EDUCATION : Bush Administration’s Plan for Ban on Minority Scholarships Draws Fire : The White House says it is trying to open up the process. Civil rights groups see the move as racial politics.

The Bush Administration, which is in the final phase of evaluating its plan to ban college scholarships based on race, appears likely to maintain its view that such scholarships are illegal.

When the Department of Education announced the ban in late 1990--a policy change that it said was intended to make the scholarships more widely available--the uproar was immediate. Civil rights activists, some educators and several politicians expressed fears that the change would hamper minority students’ chances of getting a college education.

The proposal sparked reams of written public comment, and an Administration review is now under way. A decision is expected this summer.

BACKGROUND: According to figures compiled by the American Council on Education, an umbrella group for many colleges and universities, about 3.5%--approximately 45,000--of all minority students at four-year colleges benefit from scholarships targeted to individuals of specific races or national origin.

About 5.5 million of the nation’s 13 million students receive some form of financial aid to help defray the cost of their educations.

But in late 1990, Michael L. Williams, assistant secretary for civil rights in the Education Department, warned that the two schools playing in college football’s Fiesta Bowl--the universities of Louisville and Alabama--could not get donations from the bowl game for minority scholarships.

Officials of the bowl game, held in Tempe, Ariz., had offered $100,000 to the schools after the state’s voters rejected a holiday honoring slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Williams said that scholarships for minority students violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits schools that receive federal money from discriminating on the basis of race.

Williams’ decision was put on hold, pending a review of the Administration’s policies.

ISSUES: “People don’t really understand that the idea is to protect all minority groups’ rights,” an Education Department official said, noting that about 200 comments will have to be studied before a final decision is reached. “We’re not looking to limit people from getting scholarships. We’re looking to open them up.”

To civil rights organizations and groups representing higher education, such talk sounds like political doublespeak.

“This policy would signal to many minority students not that the door to education opportunity will be opened, but that it will be closed,” said Robert E. Atwell, president of the ACE. It is one of several education groups that consider the scholarships a valuable tool for increasing minority representation on their campuses.

“We are urging the department to withdraw its proposed policy,” Atwell said.

The policy change also drew condemnation from the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights groups, which view the decision as an example of the Administration’s political use of race-laced issues.

“We see the whole question in the context of a political campaign and the Administration’s race-baiting tactics to appeal to (white) voters,” said Cecelie Counts Blakey, congressional liaison in the Washington office of the NAACP. “The issue of (banning) minority scholarships is something that the Bush Administration can use to suggest reverse discrimination, while they ignore the more pressing and important issues related to education.”

In the wake of the flap created by Williams, Education Secretary Lamar Alexander conducted a seven-month review of the minority scholarship issue before releasing his finding that schools using race as their primary consideration for handing out scholarships violated the Civil Rights Act.

Alexander’s assessment allowed schools to consider race among other factors in the awarding of scholarships, such as financial need or to increase minority enrollment. But all students must be eligible for those scholarships and race cannot be the only factor considered, he said.

Education Department officials are expected to spend about three or four months reviewing the reports, letters and legal arguments received during the public comment period before publishing its final enforcement guidelines in the Federal Register.

When all is done, observers predict the matter will continue as a topic of heated debate. Rep. Craig Washington (D-Tex.), for example, proposed legislation last year that would have allowed all scholarships based on race, color or national origin if their purpose was to encourage student body diversity. While that idea failed to advance beyond the discussion stage, it is likely to reappear after the Administration announces its guidelines.

If the Administration upholds its ban on minority scholarships, college administrators and civil rights activists promise a fight.

“No question about it,” said an official with the House Education and Labor Committee. “This is an issue that will have to be resolved at another level because neither (side) is going to be dissatisfied with the (Administration’s) response. That’s when Congress and the courts get involved.”