WWS drops race factor in program

The University discontinued a race-based summer program at the Wilson School yesterday because its admission policy could not be defended in court, Vice President for Communications Robert Durkee '69 said.

"If you are committed to diversity, what you don't want to do is to defend a program that would put [diversity] at risk," Durkee said of the decision not to wait until a legal challenge arises.

No suit has been filed against what University officials called a "successful" program, he added.

For 18 years the Woodrow Wilson School Junior Summer Institute has hosted only minority undergraduate students outside the University in the hopes of encouraging graduate study in public and international affairs.

Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter '80 said about half of the minority graduate students in the school participated in the summer program.

The program may continue, but the minority-only admission policy has been dropped, Durkee said.

The decision comes amid the growing debate on how the Supreme Court will rule in two cases that challenge the race-conscious admission policies at the University of Michigan. Three white students allege that the undergraduate and law school admission policies deny white applicants the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution. President Tilghman has said that Princeton may join Harvard University in an amicus brief in support of the University of Michigan.

"In the current legal climate the University does not believe that it can continue to offer a program in which admission is restricted by race," the University said in a statement given to The Daily Princetonian.

Slaughter said continuing the program's admission policies would "undermine the credibility" of the University's support of the University of Michigan. She said the University would be seen as supporting racially exclusive policies, or what she called "100 percent" quotas.

The institute was founded in 1985 with Ford Foundation funds more than five years after the Supreme Court's landmark affirmative-action ruling in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, Slaughter said.

She said the program has since come under University funding because the Ford Foundation decided about five years ago that it could no longer legally defend the program.

The program's constitutionality could be questioned by "watchdog groups" because the University receives federal funds, Durkee said.

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An outside organization alerted the University to the possible illegality of the admission policies, Vice President and Secretary Thomas Wright '62 said. University lawyers have been reviewing the situation since late last year and decided they could not defend the program if challenged. Slaughter held a meeting last evening at the Wilson School, which many of the program's alums who are also current graduate students attended.

Durkee said the Wilson School has requested time to "think about the most effective way to achieve" the stated goals without using a race-exclusive admission criteria.

While Vice President and Secretary Thomas Wright '62 said yesterday's decision was not made in anticipation of a new ruling against the University of Michigan — the Supreme Court's ruling could dictate future admission policies for the institute and the University.