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To publish such a letter,even without naming the rival applicant, would risk an injustice. Possibly this person was now the only black freshman at Duke from Jacksonville, Ala. To have something like this in the paper could be humiliating to someone whose only crime was having gotten into Duke.

I decided to see what I could find out by sending Duke President Keith Brodie a copy of Elkins' letter, asking him to verify the facts and to comment. I knew that the response would avoid specifics, and it did, citing the federal Family Education Right to Privacy Act. I suspected that the answer would deny the accuracy of Elkins' account and generally deny any reverse discrimination by Duke.

The letter from Harold M. Wingood, acting director of admissions, did all of those things, including asserting baldly that "data provided in Ms. Elkins' letter simply is not accurate." Wingood stressed that "with nearly 14,300 applications for some 1,565 spaces" Duke used a number of intangible factors in addition to grades and scores in making admissions decisions.

I had scarcely had time to think about Duke's response and where to go from there when The Charlotte Observer spread across its local front page last Sunday a story entitled, "Applicant claims reverse bias." With the story were graduation photos of Elizabeth Elkins and Kamaria Morris, the classmate who got into Duke and whom Elkins apparently identified when asked to do so by reporters.

Notwithstanding the banner headline, The Observer had little news to offer. Morris, in a crowning irony, had passed up Duke in favor of Cornell. She was, as I expected, quite upset about Elkins' letters. "I am so mad, right now tears are streaming down my face," she told the Observer reporter on the phone. "I am just as well-qualified as she is."

The Observer's real news was in these two paragraphs:
"Elkins says she ranked 11th in her high school class of 114 and scored 1,180 out of 1,600 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.

"Morris says she ranked 18th and scored 1,130."

In other words, on those two objective criteria, Elkins' credentials did not "far outweigh" her classmate's, as she claimed, but were essentially indistinguishable. Both had a class rank that should satisfy any college and both had respectable, if not outstanding, SAT scores. Obviously, an admissions committee having to choose between them would look at other things.

Elkins' letter boldly asserts, "My list of extracurricular activities, including many sports, leadership positions and experience in foreign lands as a part of a military family, dwarfs hers." Morris wisely avoids joining that argument, and I have no interest in an A-to-Z, side-by-side comparison. To say that Morris was chosen over Elkins, implying head-to-head competition, is misleading. One admissions committee chose Morris (out of 14,300 applicants) but not Elkins.

Is it possible that Duke gave some weight to Morris' race? Of course it is, Wingood's assurances notwithstanding. An admissions committee trying to select a varied freshman class would naturally consider race, as well as geography, economic status, talents and even political leanings.

That doesn't necessarily mean quotas -- such as Berkeley's notorious cap on Asian-American admissions -- but it can come close. I remember the frustrations of New England high schoolers 30 years ago who knew their chances of getting into an Ivy League college would be so much better if they lived in Alabama. I can also remember sharing the anger of friends who were defeated by Jewish quotas. There is a very fine line between justice and injustice in these things.

I feel sorry for Elizabeth Elkins, an achiever who dreamed of Duke but ended up staying home to attend Jacksonville State (corrected) University while her classmate Kamaria Morris embarks on an Ivy League education at Cornell. I also feel sorry for Morris, who did nothing to deserve all this publicity. Why Elkins didn't knuckle down and find a Cornell for herself, I don't know.

I also don't know why Elkins, with so little to go on, filed a complaint against Duke with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. I don't know why she fired off letters to newspapers across the South lamenting that "this now common occurrence is downing the aspirations of the white race."

Reverse discrimination is a reality that must be confronted frankly. But Elizabeth Elkins' experience is not a place to start. Based on what we know, she hasn't got much of a case.

What a shame to see a young woman at 18, full of ability and potential, apparently so mired in self-pity and resentment.