Doctored Program

A white woman claims she's disadvantaged too

To the discomfiture of many traditional civil rights advocates, Rita Greenwald Clancy was inspecting cadavers alongside 102 other freshman medical students at the University of California, Davis, last week. Admitted to the medical school through a federal court order, Clancy, 22, had managed to exploit one of the main arguments used to justify affirmative-action programs for minority job and school applicants.

The same beleaguered U.C.-Davis medical school is already reeling from a suit filed by Allan Bakke, a white who claimed he was excluded because the university reserved 16 of 100 places in its entering class for blacks, Chicanos, American Indians, Puerto Ricans and Asians.

The California Supreme Court ruled 6 to 1 last year that Bakke was the victim of race discrimination, and the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the university's appeal Oct. 12 in the most publicized civil rights case of recent years.

Like many institutions, Davis bases its special admissions program on grounds that extraordinary consideration should be given applicants who have battled economic and race discrimination problems.

In practice, that often means lower admission requirements for blacks, Spanish-surnamed Americans and, especially in California, Asians. Clancy, who married a Los Angeles public defender last year, believes her disadvantaged background fits the special-program criteria. A Russian-born Jew whose parents were imprisoned in concentration camps, she immigrated only seven years ago to the U.S., where her impoverished family had to accept public assistance. Despite serious problems with English and the necessity of holding a part-time job, she managed an A+ average at U.C.L.A. and was placed at the top of one of the Davis medical school waiting lists. Her request to be considered for the special disadvantaged program was refused.

Why should a Clancy face stiffer entrance requirements than, say, the son of a more prosperous black family? U.S.

Judge Thomas J. MacBride apparently could not fathom any overwhelming reason, and, citing potential "irreparable injury" to Clancy, ordered Davis to admit her, at least temporarily. A U.S. Ninth Circuit panel refused to overrule MacBride, and university officials agreed last week to allow Clancy to pursue her studies, pending the outcome of the Bakke challenge. In all likelihood, Bakke's fate notwithstanding, Mrs. Clancy will thus become Dr. Clancy by 1981. -

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