(FORTUNE Magazine) – Being somewhat prejudiced against conspiracy theories, we were a bit slow to embrace one that surfaced last year in the course of the never-ending racial rows over college admissions. The theory pertains to the uniquely poisonous rows in California, and it was first mentioned, as far as we know, by Vincent Sarich, the embattled anthropologist at the University of California at Berkeley. On our scorecard, you are entitled to be labeled ''embattled'' when ) student protesters invade your classrooms yelling ''bullshit'' (as happened to Sarich in November). He has recently been out front in criticizing race-based admissions procedures at Berkeley. He says there is no more reason to promote ethnic diversity in college admissions than in recruiting for basketball. A lot of other people make the same point but, unlike Sarich, usually turn out to be thinking mainly of bias against Asian-Americans. Discrimination against this group has in fact been a major focus of concern at the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education (which recently charged the University of California at Los Angeles with bias against Asian-Americans in its graduate math department). Quotas victimizing Asian- Americans have also been a cause taken up by assorted conservatives, the most conspicuous being Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher of Long Beach, California. Folks like us who get on Rohrabacher's mailing list have no shortage of examples of what looks like prejudice against Asian-Americans. Sarich has a somewhat different perspective, however, and could be onto something. He noted in a recent paper that Asian-Americans represent less than 10% of California high school graduates, yet account for about 20% of those admitted to Berkeley. So what's the problem? You could of course make a case that they are still being shortchanged, since they are such superior students. But the whites with whom they are competing are also top-flight students. Among those admitted to Berkeley, whites and Asian-Americans have about the same SAT scores (each group averaging about 1270 for the verbal and math tests combined). It is the whites, Sarich argues, who are the major victims of California affirmative action. Non-Hispanic whites (''Anglos,'' in California lingo) represent about 60% of the state's high school graduates and produce about two-thirds of those academically eligible for the eight-campus University of California. Yet on those campuses, Anglos now represent only 51% of freshman admissions, and at Berkeley the figure is down to 34%. So whites are admitted to Berkeley at about half the rate you would expect in a nondiscriminatory world. They have been displaced by blacks and Hispanics, the intended beneficiaries of affirmative action, each overrepresented by more than 200%. If whites are the major victims of discrimination, why is the discussion so heavily focused on the bias against Asians? Sarich, who does not himself believe in a conspiracy, said in his paper that ''a conspiracy theorist'' might conclude the emphasis on Asians was designed to obscure what is happening to whites. Our own view is that something of this sort really is taking place. More precisely, a fair number of conservatives who believe in a merit system, and therefore oppose affirmative action, know in their bones that it is dangerous to speak out for white rights -- that anyone doing so is susceptible to charges of skinheadism and general benightedness. They sense, however, that it is still politically correct to speak out for the Asian minority. Affirmative action in college admissions, now routine across the land, is uniquely bizarre in California. The state has a radicalized Democrat- controlled legislature that never tires of pressing for more educational preference and last year passed a bill that would have required the colleges to graduate, as well as admit, students in proportion to their racial representation among high school graduates. Somewhat to the disappointment of kibitzers like us, who were aching to see how the system would have dealt with the shortfall of white graduates, outgoing Governor Deukmejian vetoed the bill. Maybe he was part of the conspiracy.