IN a sense, the debate over whether quotas exist limiting Asian-American enrollment at leading universities nationwide has been misguided. While no one suggests that there is no anti-Asian discrimination, the idea of admissions offices at America's top colleges posting specific limits on the number of minorities they admit seems unlikely. This does not deny that racial discrimination exists; it only asserts that institutions which claim to shape a free, educated, and democratic society cannot afford to show bias so crudely.

The question at hand is not whether institutions discriminate through mechanical, university-wide limits on enrollment. It is whether universities discriminate against individuals, and whether that specific discrimination adds up to bias that singles out racial minorities on the basis of skewed admissions criteria or processes.

Take Harvard, for example. Byerly Hall would not be so foolhardy as to draft a secret memorandum setting ceilings on minority admissions, even if such limits were desirable. For a university which claims to educate the best of America's young with the world's most enlightened ideals to turn round and declare it denies opportunity to fully qualified individuals simply because of their race would be outrageously hypocritical. In fact, the admissions office's January 22 statement on Asian-American policy cited a 1978 Supreme Court opinion lauding Harvard as an "illuminating model" for minority admissions.

However, unjust restrictions on minority admissions do exist at Harvard and at universities nationwide. The stark difference between the 13.3 percent acceptance rate of Asian students and the 17.0 percent rate of their white peers makes this fact undeniably clear. To understand why, examine closely the factors the Admissions Office statement gave for the lower Asian-American rate: a relative absence of legacy parents and a slight deficiency in high school extracurricular activity.

On the surface, these reasons seem legitimate, and, as the admissions office statement maintained, the two are declining in severity and should eventually disappear altogether. But in reality, both are hypocritical.

In the case of legacies, we grant that Harvard's private status gives it the right to bless its alumni with prestigous degrees for their children. But understand that Harvard remains loyal to its alums only because they reward their alma mater with financial gifts, or what the admissions statement euphemistically called "scholarship funds."

Essentially, Harvard is not willing to sacrifice one cent of its gargantuan endowment, even in the short run, to give fully qualified minority students equality with their more established peers. Instead, the university prefers to "phase in" equality, waiting for its pool of Asian-American graduates to climb up the income ladder and to pay their dues for the privilege of admitting their children.

Such discrimination is elitist, self-serving, invidious, and totally at odds with any claim that Harvard is a national university serving the national interests of integrating diverse groups and educating the most talented individuals.

Legacy, in short, is no justification for discriminating against a racial minority simply because of their new integration into American life. It is instead a preservation of an old, irrelevent situation.

The admissions office also stated that Asian American applicants participate less in extra-curriculars than their white peers. However, even granting this (which many Harvard Asian students deny), its validity as an excuse for lower admission rates is questionable on several grounds.

First, one may claim that universities exist to produce educated graduates. But Asian-Americans are quickly proving themselves qualified for every stage of education--just look at the booming number of Asian-American Rhodes and Marshall scholars, graduate students, and Ph.D.'s. Even the Harvard admissions statement cited disproportionate Asian-American success as validation for its practices.

If these minority students succeed as university students, why aren't they admitted to college in equal proportions to their white counterparts? Is every Asian-American rejected by Harvard as equally unqualified as every white? Surely the success of Asian-Americans at Harvard and at schools nationwide points to the ability of their rejected peers, at least as much as the success of white students reveals the competence of their applicant pool.

Even granting that the admissions office's reasoning and statistics are sound, what about their implicit claim that universities should base their success on producing "leaders in many different fields," and that nonacademic activity is an important part of this task?

Academically, Asian-American success shows that even a supposed lack of nonacademic activity is irrelevent to scholastic performance, although the admissions office suggests otherwise. In other areas, one must recognize that Harvard students do not act as they did in high school. Few students performed only one activity in high school, but few are dedicated to more than one activity now. And if you take a look around, the chief activity of every undergraduate remains schoolwork.

In short, extra-curricular activity, while obviously important to many Harvard undergraduates in pursuit of what Byerly Hall called a "well-rounded `collegiate' experience," deserves a second glance when it is cited as a reason of specifically lowering the admission rates of a single minority.

This is not to say that Harvard actively limits the admission of Asian American students through quotas or any other mechanical device. But Harvard and all members of the university must beware of subtle, even nonintentional, discrimination. Contradictions and hypocrisy exist in Harvard's practices, ideology, and stated goals, but they may be remedied without serious disruption. There is absolutely no justification for the continued deficiency in Asian-American admissions rates in relation to their white peers.