Illiberal Education the Politics of Race & Sex in Campus

Virtually all U.S. universities now fill a sizable portion of each year's freshman class with students from ``certified minority groups''--mainly blacks and Hispanics--with considerably lower grade-point averages than white and Asian-American applicants who are refused admission, according to the author. A former White House policy analyst, D'Souza believes that preferential-treatment admissions policies weaken educational standards and foster separatism and racial tension on campus. In a hard-hitting, controversial report sure to be widely debated, he focuses on divisive issues at six schools: Stanford's multicultural curriculum; Berkeley's ethnic admissions policy; Lee Atwater's forced resignation as Howard University trustee; and recent developments at Michigan, Harvard and Duke. Now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, D'Souza calls for ``nonracial affirmative action policies'' based strictly on socioeconomic disadvantage. He further argues that university-funded student groups should be built around cultural and intellectual interests, not skin color or sexual proclivity. (Apr.)