University Admissions Study Urged : Education: Reps. Rohrabacher, Dornan seek end to policies that rely on racial ‘quotas.’

Two conservative Orange County congressmen on Wednesday urged federal officials to move forward with reviews of university admissions practices across the nation to uncover and end policies that rely on racial “quotas.”

At a Capitol Hill press conference, Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) applauded Monday’s finding by the U.S. Department of Education that affirmative action admissions policies at Boalt Hall, the UC Berkeley law school, violated federal civil rights law.

“Discrimination on the basis of race is wrong, and it cannot be justified on the basis of diversity or any other haywire liberal goal,” Rohrabacher said. “Racism for any reason is wrong.”

Dornan said: “The only thing wrong with this (Education Department) report is that it’s three years later than it should have been.”

Rohrabacher said Education Department officials have told him that they will release the findings of other inquiries “in the near future.” Among the policies known to be under review are those at UCLA, UC Berkeley’s undergraduate schools and UC San Diego.

Affirmative action programs have been widely credited with opening up institutions of higher education to minority members who might not otherwise have been admitted because of poverty, poor secondary school preparation or other factors.

Rohrabacher has long opposed the use of racial quotas as part of affirmative action programs. The congressman, who represents northwestern Orange County, first called for the federal investigation of Boalt Hall admissions practices in 1989.

The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights found that between 1988 and 1990, Boalt Hall admission officials effectively excluded applicants “from consideration for available positions based on their race or ethnicity” in an attempt to ensure racial diversity.

In effect, the department held that setting aside slots at the law school for certain minorities, including blacks and Latinos, illegally denied those slots to qualified candidates from other ethnic groups. Rohrabacher had complained that the policy particularly hurt Asian-Americans.

Leaders of national higher education organizations have complained that the federal decision could weaken affirmative action efforts at colleges and universities across the country.