Show Threatened Berkeley Surrenders Its Civil Rights File FileTo FileTo FileTo To the Only CPS-Only a few hours before it would have become the first college ever barred from getting federal research contracts the University of California-Berkeley California finally agreed to release certain documents documents documents doc doc- the government needed in an investigation of the schools school's affirmative action action action ac ac- tion program The US U.S. Department of Labor first asked Berkeley to hand over faculty employment employment employment employ employ- ment records two years ago as prelude to awarding the school a Navy research con con- tract The government was trying to make sure Berkeley Berkeley Berkeley Berk Berk- eley was complying with federal federal federal fed fed- eral civil rights regulations The law requires any institution institution institution getting federal funds to have an effective affirmative affirmative affirmative tive action program The university however refused to give the government government government govern govern- ment the records which administrators administrators administrators ad ad- said contained confidential faculty evaluations evaluations evaluations that could be embar- embar or or could even hurt careers if if ever made public Berkeley Berkeley Berkeley Berk Berk- eley argued that the evaluations evaluations evaluations eval eval- once in government possession could become public if someone made the attempt to see them under the Freedom of Information Act After two years of conflict Dept of Labor Official Donald Donald Donald Don Don- ald Elisberg announced last month that Berkeley had 30 days to hand over the documents documents documents docu docu- ments or lose some 25 million million million mil mil- lion in federal contracts Last week on the night before before before be be- fore the deadline Berkeley administrators decided to submit the records to the government after all Berkeley's surrender surrender surrender-in- in included in a consent decree engineered by a Labor Dept administrative law judge- judge came a year after a court ruling that the records were essential for affirmative action action action ac ac- tion compliance and that the university should give them to administrators |