Racial Preferences

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration will announce a new approach in the awarding of government contracts that may end race-based preferences for some minority-owned businesses while making billions of dollars in federal contracts available for others, officials said yesterday.The new effort reflects a commitment within the administration to preserve some affirmative action programs while complying with court rulings that severely limit them.The revised approach, in proposed Justice Department regulations to be issued this week, will substantially change the rules for awarding federal contracts worth $200 billion a year.

WASHINGTON -- When classes reopen next week at the nation's oldest public school, the Boston Latin School, the entry of one new student -- under court order -- will set the stage for a major Supreme Court case on affirmative action.The sophomore class of the prestigious 364-year-old high school will include 15-year-old Sarah P. Wessmann, a white student from the city's Dorchester section. She had wanted to enter as a freshman but lost out then because of a race-based admissions policy.That policy has now been struck down by a federal appeals court, which ordered Sarah's prompt admission.

The Naval Academy yesterday announced it will change its application for sponsors, Annapolis-area residents who host midshipmen in their homes, after complaints from the local chapter of the NAACP that it encouraged racial division. No longer will the online form ask potential sponsors to state racial and religious preferences they have for the midshipmen who come to them for home-cooked food, a ride to the mall or a couch to crash on. Sponsors can still opt for a midshipman of a particular gender or for one involved in a particular activity.

Affirmative action in higher education raises difficult questions of access and fairness. Opponents argue that it discriminates against whites and certain other groups, while proponents emphasize that it increases opportunities for underrepresented minorities. Though concerns about fairness properly limit the scope and frequency of affirmative action, minority underrepresentation in highly selective colleges and universities continues to validate its use. For almost 40 years, the Supreme Court has grappled with challenges to the scope and validity of race-based affirmative action programs.

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - The percentage of minority students admitted to the University of California has nearly reached affirmative action levels, according to figures released this week. In addition, the system admitted 10 percent more Californians than last year. Of the students the UC system admitted for the fall 2001 freshman class, 18.6 percent were black, Latino, Chicano and American Indian. That's a percentage point increase over last year and just shy of 1997's 18.8 percent, the last time the university used racial preferences in admissions.

In the first federal appeals court ruling on racial preferences in public school admissions, a three-judge panel in Boston yesterday struck down the affirmative-action policy at Boston Latin School, the city's most prestigious public high school.The challenge to Boston Latin, brought by Henry Robert Wessman, the father of a white student who was not admitted, moves the charged debate over affirmative action in education from the college and professional school level down to the public school systems.

FINDING A majority on the usually fractious Supreme Court is crucial. Few did that with greater skill and grace than Lewis F. Powell.A Richmond establishment lawyer who had helped bring Virginia into compliance with desegregation, he was 64, a conservative who loved lawyering and not judging, when President Nixon nominated him in 1971.His departure from the high court in 1987 after 15 terms was lamented by colleagues because of the gentlemanly way he had found common ground among them.Justice Powell, who died Tuesday at 90, will be remembered for the majorities he made.

WASHINGTON -- The invertebrate condition of some Republicans is suggested by a revision of Major Sullivan Ballou's letter.When Ken Burns' Civil War series appeared on public television, viewers were stirred by Ballou's letter to his wife before Bull Run. Ballou, who died there, wrote of his readiness ''to burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our sons grown up to honorable manhood.''...

WASHINGTON - For 23 years, universities across the country that rely on affirmative action have been guided by a basic principle: So long as they do not set quotas, racial preferences may be used in admissions to ensure a diverse student body. The origin of that premise is a 1978 opinion by Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell, which said that though set-asides are unconstitutional, schools may use race as a "plus factor" to achieve student diversity. What has long been a guiding principle, though, is increasingly under attack.

PURSING ITS LIPS austerely, the electorate saw its duty and did it pitilessly. Feeling inclined to extend the Clinton presidency, it did so in a deflating manner, making him a lame duck on a short leash held by a Congress that probably will be controlled by Republicans for the rest of his tenure. His post-election smile could be construed as an inverted grimace.Voters gave Bill Clinton what history says is a recipe for disappointment -- a second term. And they allowed Republicans to retain control of the engine of government in this era of restored congressional supremacy.