Capital Briefs: December 26, 1981

During the Carter Administration, the government sued tiny Grove City College in Pennsylvania for refusing to execute an "assurance of comliance" with a 1972 law forbidding colleges to discrimiate against women.  Grove city which has admitted women for more than a century, said that since it accepted no federal funds, it would not fill out Washington's form.  The Carter Administration argued that because some individual Grove City students received federally backed student loans, the college should be forced to comply.  The case is now before a federal appeals court and the Department of Education wants to switch sides and support Grove City.  But zealous lawyers within the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division are pressuring Atty. Gen. William French Smith to prevent the Education Department from backing the beleaguered college.