Regents Argue Over Challenge to UC Minority Policy : Education: Charge that university gives preference to some students recalls controversy sparked by Bakke case.

Twenty years after the precedent-setting Bakke suit challenged racial quotas in college admissions, the University of California regents found themselves in the midst of a contentious debate Thursday over whether the system’s medical schools still set aside slots for minority students.

In the kind of emotional back-and-forth seldom seen in the staid chambers of the university system’s governing board, the issue drew charges by several regents that University of California medical school officials might be acting within the law, but not following its spirit, by using race as a criterion for admission.

The harshest criticism came from Regent Ward Connerly, who said the system of admissions, which gives an edge to minority students, “may be lawful but it still may not be right.”

“It may trample on the rights of others,” said Connerly, who is black. “It may not be right. It may not be equitable. It may not be fair.”

The unlikely catalyst for the friction was a bespectacled San Diego computer programmer named Jerry Cook, who forced an examination of the university system’s admission policies by compiling data that showed that minorities admitted to the UC medical schools consistently scored lower than whites in grade-point average and medical school entrance exam scores.

Cook charged that his figures prove that a quota system still exists in medical school admissions despite the Bakke decision, which struck down racial quotas but allowed colleges to consider race as one factor in admission decisions.

That case involved a 1974 lawsuit filed by a 33-year-old student named Allan Bakke, who contended that he was denied admission to the UC Davis Medical School because he was white. In his suit, Bakke said he was not admitted because of the school’s policy of reserving 16 slots out of 100 for minority applicants.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 1978 decision, ruled that the school’s quota system was illegal. The court said that affirmative action could be one of the factors that decide admission, but not the only one.

Cook, in presenting his findings to UC President Jack W. Peltason, contended that his figures proved a quota system is still in place because blacks and Latinos have been given preference over white applicants with higher test scores.

At the regents meeting Thursday, medical school officials and UC lawyers painted a much different picture of the selection process, and said there are many factors that enter into admission decisions.

“To achieve diversity and meet our educational and professional needs, we must give some weight--among a wide variety of criteria other than grades and test scores--to the race or ethnicity of highly qualified applicants,” Peltason said.

As part of the lengthy presentation, Michael Drake, associate dean of admissions for the UC San Francisco Medical School, pointed out that virtually all minority medical students graduated and passed their medical boards. He also said there is a need for minority doctors within their communities.

“I am compelled to remind us that race-related bias is a persistent, sometimes crippling force affecting people of color in the United States in countless ways,” he said. “It has been suggested that we use a color-blind or race-blind admissions policy. That would be fine in a color-blind society. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.”