Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 7, 1994 TAG: 9402070043
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOSTON GLOBE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Education Secretary Richard Riley, who has long supported minority scholarships, reviewed a report by Congress' Government Accounting Office that found that academic scholarships awarded on the basis of race amount to no more than 4 percent of all undergraduate scholarship dollars. The report said minority scholarships provide an important tool to promote campus diversity.
Riley and Education Department officials decided there is no legal reason to prevent colleges and universities from issuing scholarships based on race, the sources said.
"We welcome that decision in the strongest possible terms," said David Merkowitz, spokesman for the American Council on Education, the umbrella association for the nation's colleges and universities.
"We have maintained all along that minority scholarships are legal and advisable as part of the effort of colleges and universities to increase access to education and promote diversity on campus," Merkowitz said.
The furor over race-based scholarships began in December 1990, when the assistant secretary in charge of civil rights at the Education Department, Michael Williams, warned officials of the Fiesta Bowl football game that they would be violating the 1964 Civil Rights Law if they donated $100,000 for scholarships to minority students.
At the time, Education Secretary Lamar Alexander, a former president of the University of Tennessee system, tried to downplay Williams' action, saying minority scholarships paid for by private sources would be allowed to continue, in addition to all court-ordered minority scholarships and those required by Congress.
Alexander also said the government had set aside $18 billion for grants and federally guaranteed loans for all students.
"We want you in, not out," he said of minority students.
But Alexander also said the schools could not restrict the pool of applicants for scholarships, so ones for which only blacks or other minorities could apply would no longer be legal.
That announcement angered colleges, universities and civil rights groups. They argued that minority scholarships are one of the few tools they have to help recruit and retain minority students.
Congress and higher education groups, such as the American Council on Education, pressured the Bush administration to back off the policy. Eventually, Alexander agreed to wait for the GAO study before making the regulations permanent.
Last year, Robert H. Atwell, president of the American Council on Education, said the Bush administration's policy was "totally uncalled for" and "based on faulty legal reasoning."
In addition, Atwell said, "It displays an almost total lack of understanding of the way colleges and universities recruit students, raise funds and award financial aid."
The GAO study, which was released last month, said financial need and academic merit are requirements for obtaining most race-based scholarships.
The report also said most of the minority scholarships are paid for through private endowments, tuition and fees, not tax dollars.
The conservative Washington Legal Foundation jumped into the fray, announcing it would file suit in U.S. District Court against Education Department officials in an effort to force the department, in effect, to return to Williams' initial ruling on the grounds that it is the correct interpretation of the law.
But a federal judge dismissed that lawsuit, brought by seven white college students, saying the court should not step in prematurely and make the agency's decision.
by CNB