For more than a decade now, major U.S. news media (including The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Time and Newsweek magazines, and various television networks) have featured articles which questioned the innate intellectual abilities of Blacks and Hispanics on the basis of their performance on standardized aptitude tests. White "test authorities" have used performance on these tests as a tool for discrimination against minorities of color, especially in respect to college admissions. Under the guise of protecting America's vital intelligence standards, certain influential individuals and special interest groups have sought to use test scores as a means of limiting the number of minorities who enter the marketplace and assure a place for themselves and their own. Their invidious assaults have ranged from arguments against affirmative action and numerical quotas for minorities to support for the Defunis and Bakke cases--court cases which in essence argued that persons with the highest scores on admissions and other standardized tests should be given first preference, irrespective of other factors such as background, personality, leadership ability, manners, hygiene, etc. As long as these individuals and special interest groups felt they had a monopoly on test scores, they pushed a "scores alone" policy, all other factors be damned. The rash adoption of this policy by all too eager educational institutions (and the vicious media manipulations of the subject) has seriously undermined the educational opportunities for many Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans not to mention the emotional pain and cultural stress it has caused these groups.

This consistent pattern of racist behavior prompted some Black scholars to ask the question. If large numbers of minorities of color performed better than whites academically or attained highers scores on standard admission tests (college or otherwise), would they be granted places or jobs on the basis of the test scores ("merit") alone? The answer to this heretofore academic question may be at hand.

Recently, the "meritocracy" zealots have been beating a hasty retreat from their steadfast position of guardians of America's brain trust and true colors. This withdrawal has been hastened by the introduction of a new and unpredicted factor in the equation: The increase in Asian-American students. Victims of discrimination in America themselves. Asian-American citizens and residents have remained rather quiet during the Civil Rights struggle. However, as their numbers and economic circumstances have improved in the U.S. they have moved in take advantage of the doors opened by the Civil Rights movement. While there have always been many qualified Asian-Americans in the academic pool, only recently have they increased their numbers manifold in selective colleges throughout the nation. These students tend to be highly motivated and often score in the highest percentiles on standardized college entrance exams. Many applying to Ivy League schools, for example, have both superb grade point averages and scores in the 99th percentile in the math, chemistry, physics, and biology sections of the college board achievement tests.

While such rare performance by Euro-American students would be viewed as highly laudable, it has provoked poorly concealed negative reactions toward Asian-Americans on the part of some. These reactions have prompted an increasing number of television commentaries, and newspaper and magazine articles which are ostensibly benign cultural profiles but in reality are most often subtle fear-tactics designed to focus the attention of the white majority on this issue and provoke counter-measures. The media marionettes and their manipulators most often emphasize the high number of Asian-Americans entering the prestigious colleges, their projected "disproportionate representation" in university classes of the future, and other carefully researched population statistics which would never be publicized for some other ethnic concentrations. Rarely do they mention the fact these students are highly qualified by college admission criteria.

From these media presentations and closed doors whispers about U.S. college admissions one hears even the most vocal "meritocracy" guardians now advocating fixed quotas for Asian-Americans when just a few years ago they argued vehemently against a policy of numerus clausus. Some are now even going so far as to suggest that factors such as personality, community work, and other intangibles be reintroduced as criteria for admissions. These tactics represent a serious racist attack against Asian-Americans and the ultimate in hypocrisy. The message these hypocrites are sending to Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian-Americans is clear: It really does not matter whether one scores very low or high on the "meritocracy" tests, if you are a minority of color in America every conceivable effort will be made by the white majority to deny you equal access and keep you at the bottom of the economic ladder.

S. Allen Counter is the director of the Harvard Foundation, which was established by the University two years ago to improve race relations.