THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 28, 1994 TAG: 9410280614
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
College scholarships that are restricted to students based on their race are unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
The 3-0, broadly worded opinion sets the stage for a Supreme Court confrontation on whether two-thirds of the nation's colleges can continue to set aside at least some scholarships for minority students.
``Of all the criteria by which men and women can be judged, the most pernicious is that of race,'' wrote Judge H. Emory Widener of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Richmond. ``The casual invocation of benign remedial aims'' is not enough to justify a state-funded scholarship that bars some students from applying solely because of their race, he said.
The decision invalidates the University of Maryland's Banneker Program, which awards all-expenses-paid scholarships to promising black students. In a closely watched lawsuit, the program had been challenged by a Latino student who was deemed ineligible to apply, even though he had a 4.0 grade average in high school and a score of 1340 out of 1600 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
Daniel Podberesky, now 22 and a first-year medical student at Maryland, is entitled to the $35,000 in scholarship aid he should have received as an undergraduate, the court said.
``This is a decisive victory, and it's an important statement,'' said Richard Samp, an attorney for the Washington Legal Foundation, a conservative group that supported the lawsuit.
``We're disappointed. That's all I can say now,'' said Evelyn Cannon, Maryland's chief of litigation. The U.S. Department of Justice and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund had supported Maryland.
It was not clear whether the ruling would affect other specifically targeted scholarships, such as those directed at women.
KEYWORDS: RACE SCHOLARSHIP APPEALS COURT by CNB