The first sentence of your editorial, which states that the University of California Board of Regents "phased out affirmative acton in 1997 after the passing of Proposition 209," is factually incorrect. The Regents voted to end affirmative action in 1995, two years before the passage of Prop. 209 and began to phase out affirmative action in the graduate schools the following year.

As for the call made by one UC student leader, Amanda Channing, for "not just ethnic diversity, but diversity of thought," cited approvingly by your editorial, it seems to me somewhat ironic and disingenuous. I applaud the statement itself--it's what conservatives have been saying for decades; but I suspect what Ms. Channing really wants is a Board of Regents characterized not by diversity of thought, but by uniformity of thought in agreement with her own.

Lastly, the idea that "if Davis appoints regents who are more diverse, then the debate over how to pursue a talented and diverse student body will be more balanced than fair" is, on the face of it, silly. Among the 16 appointed regents at the time of the decision against quotas, three were black, three Hispanic, and two Asian. Two of the "virulent conservatives" who pushed most strongly for the ban were Ward Connerly, an African-American, who argued that quotas were used as an excuse to avoid improving the quality of education in inner-city schools, and Tirso del Junco, M.D., a Hispanic.

In November 1994, when the regents were debating affirmative action policy at UCSF, Regent del Junco stated emphatically that in his thirty-five years of practice in East Los Angeles he had treated all emergency room patients equally, regardless of their race. He believed that the same standard fairness should apply to college applicants. Hear, hear.

Kevin A. Shapiro '99

Feb. 17, 1999

The writer is the former editor of the Salient.