The findings of the trial court leave unresolved serious questions concerning operation of the special admissions program at Davis in 1973 and 1974," the amicus curiae brief by the United States Justice Department reads, "The trial court addressed its findings to the question whether the special admission program employed race in some manner; it did not address the question, which we believe is highly significant, of how race was used, and why."

The government's brief also called for a reversal of the state Supreme Court's judgment proscribing the use of minority-sensitive admissions criteria.

Thomas Atkins, Boston bureau director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said last week the Supreme Court should either "remand or reverse." "Reverse means," Atkins said, "to state without equivocation that, given the historical context, special efforts should be made to compensate for the inequalities of the past."

"And if the Supreme Court does not outright reverse," Atkins continued, "it should remand for a wider record. The issue is far too important to decide on such a limited record."

The question of compensatory efforts that Atkins mentions may be the most sensitive issue raised by this case.

For some, such as Isadore Vack, civil rights director of the ADL, "quotas and other preference systems represent reverse discrimination, with whites as the victims." The ADL supports "the traditional color-blind admissions methods based on individual merits," Vack said last week.

Others argue, as Lowrey did before the California trial court, that "there would be few, if any Black students and few Mexican-Americans, Indians or Orientals from disadvantaged backgrounds in the Davis Medical School, or any other medical school, if the special admissions program and similar programs at other schools did not exist."

The U.C. Davis admissions record prior to establishing the special program supports Lowrey's testimony. The Medical School opened in 1968, and during the two years in which the school had no special program, only three minority students--two blacks and one chicano--were admitted.

In its brief, U.C. Davis contends that despite the destruction of formal racial barriers in the '60s, "all but two medical schools in the nation [Howard and Meharry] remained virtually all-white islands in a multiracial society," untill the introduction of racially-sensitive admissions procedures.

In its amicus brief, the Antioch School of Law states "race, like other factors cited by the court as pertinent in interpreting test scores--socio-economic background, educational opportunities, etc.--is a factor bearing directly on the interpretation of test scores, grades and other evidence. To insist that the admission process must rely exclusively on racially neutral criteria and must exclude consideration of race in the interpretation of data is in fact to require discrimination on account of race."

Edgar S. Cahn, dean of Antioch School of Law, said this week, "In some sense, the question Bakkeposes is, 'How willing is a school to challenge the numberical criteria [grades and test scores] as adequately qualifying factors in the admission process?'

"All the evidence we have says those blessed scores don't say a damn thing about contribution or competence," Cahn said, adding that "to the extent that universities pretend or hide behind the facade of tests and numerical criteria, they regress in this question."

Cahn advocates a departure from numerical criteria, not only for disadvantaged minority students, but for all applicants. "Why is it," he asked, "when we look at a minority application, we look at all sorts of personality characteristics such as integrity, morality and staying power? Why is it we're not willing to apply the same criteria to whites?"

Alan M. Dershowitz, professor of Law at Harvard and author of a brief on behalf of the American Jewish Committee and several other ethnic organizations, said last week he supports affirmative action programs, but that "it's wrong to exclude disadvantaged whites" from such programs.

"My idea," Dershowitz said, "is to expand the concept of disadvantage. I'm critical of Davis for excluding disadvantaged whites, and I'm critical of Harvard for preferring advantaged blacks over disadvantaged blacks, and also over disadvantaged whites. There aren't many Portuguese students at Harvard for example I don't think one fewer black and one more Portuguese student would be such a bad idea," he added.