University Achievement Award would not qualify for aid. Offer preferences in admissions not to blacks, but to low-income students. Blackburn, the U.Va. Colorado State University is trying to do something like that. But the university also offers scholarships limited to minorities.
Schools can take other steps to ease the tensions over affirmative action.
For starters, they ought to tell the public the precise role affirmative action plays in admissions, says Rupert Nacoste, associate psychology professor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. They use the media, they use hearsay, and that's where we get into trouble, without concrete information about the process.'' In his research, Nacoste has found that people react negatively because they assume that race outweighs all other factors, including merit. Davies, the director of the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia, says the classroom is the perfect place to hash out the debate. At UCLA, a new course on affirmative action drew about 100 students from a variety of races last semester. It raises questions that have to do with politics, with economics, with the history of this nation.