Asian-American Cites Bias, Pushes for Officer Commission : Marines: He was subjected to ethnic slurs and flunked just before graduation. Statistics show upper ranks include relatively few minorities.

When Bruce Yamashita enrolled in the Marine Corps’ Officer Candidate School in February, 1989, he had every reason to believe he would emerge from the course an officer--the first military officer in his family’s three generations of Japanese-Americans.

Throughout the grueling 10-week course in Quantico, Va., Yamashita, a high school football star in Hawaii, appeared to be clearing all of the physical and academic hurdles laid before prospective officers.

But unlike most of them, Yamashita withstood another trial that he believes more than proved his mettle: repeated ethnic slurs from his superiors.

On the first day of class, a staff sergeant told him, “We don’t want your kind around here. Go back to your country!” Another instructor asked Yamashita why he did not join the Japanese army, and he was addressed regularly by the trade names of Japanese cars and motorcycles. Another drill sergeant reminded him that the United States in World War II had “whipped your Japanese ass!”

But two days before graduation, Yamashita and four other officer candidates--all but one of them an ethnic minority--were “disenrolled” from the course. Yamashita said he was told that he was being denied a commission because he had shown “unsatisfactory leadership.”

When he complained about his treatment, he was told initially that the racial remarks and behavior were an appropriate test of his mental toughness. Only later did the Marine Corps apologize and offer him another chance to take the course.

But Yamashita has refused, believing that the officer’s commission is his due and that negative references to his leadership qualities should be expunged from his record.

Now, 3 1/2 years later, Yamashita has come to Washington to appear before the Naval Discharge Review Board and stake his claim to the officer’s commission that he says ethnic discrimination denied him.

He was armed for Thursday’s board hearing with an analysis by his supporters of Marine Corps data that he contends shows a “pervasive and consistent pattern of discrimination” against racial and ethnic minorities.

“There was statistically little or no chance for (Yamashita) to be commissioned because the system was stacked against him and every other minority candidate for almost a decade,” said William Kaneko, president of the Honolulu chapter of the Japanese-American Citizens League, which helped Yamashita prepare his case.

The case is of interest not only to Asian-Americans, who make up a small portion of the U.S. armed forces, but also to African-Americans and Latinos, who are heavily represented in the services’ enlisted ranks but who have broken into the officer ranks in much smaller numbers. Two other failed members of Yamashita’s officer candidate class--a Latino and a Filipino-American--also testified Thursday about treatment by Marine commanders that appeared racially discriminatory. Neither witness, however, sought a commission.

For Yamashita, life has gone on. Now 36, he has graduated from Georgetown Law School and passed the bar exam to practice in Hawaii. But he has continued to wage his battle for inclusion in an organization that he contends “just doesn’t get it.”

“I was harmed; I was hurt by the racial discrimination,” Yamashita said from his hotel room in the capital as he awaited the meeting of the review board.

“The issue and the principle involved are important: My grandparents came here 100 years ago; my parents helped to build the 50th state. My uncle was in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Italy and received a Purple Heart. For a third-generation American to go to schools of the U.S. government and be subjected to these sorts of comments is unacceptable. That’s the only reason I’ve hung in for so long.”

If the Naval Discharge Review Board agrees to clear Yamashita’s record--a decision due in several weeks--that step would be only the first of several he would have to take before he could sue for his commission in the federal Court of Claims.

Backed by the Japanese-American Citizens League, Yamashita presented evidence Thursday indicating that between 1982 and 1990 the Marine Corps’ Officer Candidate Schools demonstrated a “pervasive, persistent pattern of discrimination against minority officer candidates.”

Using Marine Corps statistics, the Japanese-American Citizens League discovered that in the eight-year period, minority candidates were flunked out of the classes at a rate of almost 50%. By contrast, only one white officer candidate in three was disenrolled.

In Yamashita’s class, the differential was even more striking: 60% of the minority officer candidates were rejected, contrasted with only 28% of the white officer candidates.

The Marine Corps, in written responses to Yamashita, has acknowledged the accuracy of the statistics. But at the time of his dismissal, the Corps told him that it did not monitor racial differences in success or failure--an admission that Yamashita’s attorneys contend is evidence of “institutional bias.”

Blacks and other minorities make up slightly less than 7% of Marine Corps officers, a far cry from their 28% representation in the enlisted ranks and lower than the 15.9% representation of such racial minorities in the American population as a whole. Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders like Yamashita make up just 1.2% of Marine officers, although they are 2.8% of the overall American population.

In January, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Carl E. Mundy Jr. formed a panel to examine failure rates at Marine Corps Officer Candidate Schools, as well as to explore whether racial factors play a role in the acceptance of candidates into the program. The panel is to report to Mundy in March, and a senior Marine Corps leader acknowledged that the Corps “may have a real problem” defending its racial record.

Mundy’s action goes beyond the response of retired Marine Corps Commandant Alfred M. Gray Jr., who ordered an inspector general’s investigation of Yamashita’s charges. When it turned up evidence of “derogatory and insensitive remarks based on (Yamashita’s) heritage,” he ordered the apology.

“During the course of the investigation, it was found that some of his instructors made reference to his ethnic heritage in a controlled-stress environment,” said Chief Warrant Officer William Wright, a Marine Corps spokesman. A controlled-stress environment is military argot for getting chewed out by the drill sergeant to see if service members can handle the stress.

“It was determined that was uncalled-for,” Wright said. “Unfortunately, some instructors go overboard. The Marine Corps does not condone or tolerate racial remarks.”