Justice Department Accuses University of Reverse Bias : Courts: Suit contends officials at Illinois State refused to allow white males to join a training program for janitors.

The Justice Department announced Friday that it has sued a Midwestern university for “a pattern of discrimination” in which school officials allegedly refused to allow white males to join a special program for janitors--the kind of situation that has led to public disillusionment with affirmative action policies.

The lawsuit contends that Illinois State University in Normal discriminated on the basis of race, national origin and sex by refusing to consider applicants who were neither minorities nor women for its Building Service Worker Learner Program, a training project created to hire campus janitors.

Although Justice Department officials said that they have brought other lawsuits in recent years alleging reverse discrimination, the case appears to be the only active one of its kind in which the federal government is putting its enforcement muscle behind white males who claim that they are victims.

“Cases involving employment discrimination against white men are rare, but no less important, than cases involving minorities and women,” said Deval Patrick, an assistant attorney general for civil rights.

But Patrick and other Justice Department officials sharply denied that the suit was being brought at this time because of apparently growing sentiment in California and other states against affirmative action policies that benefit minorities.

“The law is the law,” Patrick said. “When individuals are absolutely precluded from getting a job because of their gender or race, we have an obligation to enforce the law.”

Added Myron Marlin, a Justice Department spokesman: “We based our decision on the law and the facts--not politics.”

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University officials, responding in a short statement released in Normal, indicated that they have been under pressure to meet work force diversity guidelines and have tried to meet those goals.

“We are committed as an institution to diversify our work force,” said Mark Lebovitz, a university spokesman. “Given the methodologies used by the state of Illinois’ university civil service system, this is very difficult to do. We exercised an option available through the system called the learners program as a means to diversify the work force.

“This suit is very much a surprise because we thought the issue had been resolved,” he said.

Lebovitz added that throughout the campus, “diversity has been a goal of the university for quite some time.”

“We’ve tried to do this with the faculty and staff and employees and with everyone,” he said. “I don’t know what to say beyond that.”

Established in 1857, Illinois State is the oldest higher education institution in the state. It has 20,000 students and about 1,500 employees and is located about two hours south of Chicago.

According to Justice Department officials, the program was set up in 1982 for 20 people at a time to undergo a six-month certification period. Unlike others hired directly as janitors, they do not need to take employment exams before they are given full-fledged positions.

An unnamed Illinois resident who was rejected for the program filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1989, alleging that he had been turned away because he is white.

The commission later concluded that the university had acted improperly and the panel referred the matter to federal prosecutors. For two years, prosecutors said, they attempted unsuccessfully to negotiate a settlement with the university.

Myron Marlin, a Justice Department spokesman, said prosecutors found in their investigation that others also had been turned away.

He added that the case mirrors several others in recent years, citing department action in 1991 against the West Palm Beach Fire Department in Florida for trying to bolster its diversity rating by hiring only minorities and females. The matter was later resolved with a consent decree halting the practice.

He said that another consent decree was obtained in 1993 after three male employees of the Nassau County, N.Y., police department were not allowed to use sick leave for child-care purposes--a perquisite granted only to women.