New Focus on Affirmative Action

"In the last couple of years, there has been a much more concerted effort to do this in a race-neutral way," said Lee Coffin, admissions dean at Tufts University in Massachusetts. "The poor white kid has a voice that needs to be heard, in addition to the kind of racial diversity we want to create."

University of Virginia Admissions Dean Jack Blackburn said his school has changed policies and part of its recruiting approach to find more needy applicants. "We realized that we are not providing access," he said. "We are not educating very many kids from low-income backgrounds. The numbers are shockingly low."

That, he said, was one key reason the university recently announced it was dropping its binding early-decision program.

Whether last week's elections -- which returned control of Congress to Democrats, who generally favor affirmative action -- will have an impact on such programs' future remains to be seen.

An important test could come next month, when the American Bar Association undergoes review of its authority to accredit university law schools. A Department of Education hearing, aimed at recertifying the ABA's Council of the Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar as the official accrediting agency for law schools, is expected to be a forum for complaints.

The ABA recently rewrote a diversity standard for law schools, requiring more concrete action to promote a diverse faculty, staff and student body. The new standard drew fire from both sides of the debate: The Congressional Black Caucus did not think it went far enough, and the Bush administration's Commission on Civil Rights said this past summer that it went too far.

The National Association of Scholars has asked the Education Department not to renew the ABA's accrediting power if it does not eliminate all requirements of racial, ethnic and gender diversity from its accreditation standards.

Sources familiar with the issue said the department is divided over the question, with some administration political appointees sympathetic to that request.

Even if affirmative action were to disappear, "the universities are going to try very hard to admit a reasonable number of minority candidates," Cose said. "But they are inevitably going to see the numbers go down."