MADISON, Wis.

Wisconsin state colleges shouldn’t use an applicant’s race to help decide whether he or she gets into school, an affirmative action opponent told a packed committee hearing this week.

Ward Connerly, chairman of the California-based American Civil Rights Coalition, which supports banning public affirmative action programs, said he believes the University of Wisconsin System should look at other factors besides academics when deciding who gets a slot, but not race.

“I happen to believe ... that the use of race by my government is wrong, for me or against me,” Connerly told the legislative Special Committee on Affirmative Action.

Connerly’s group helped push a successful ballot provision in Michigan this fall banning race and gender in university admissions and government hiring. Similar proposals have passed in California and Washington in the past decade, and the group has targeted nine Western states for proposals that could come up in the 2008 election.

His visit sparked outrage among students and state lawmakers who back affirmative action.

“It’s dismissing us, like we really don’t belong here,” said Mike Montgomery, an 18-year-old Black UW freshman from Los Angeles.

Connerly’s appearance comes as UW System regents consider a new, holistic admissions policy that would give greater weight to nonacademic factors such as race. They anticipate a decision early next year, perhaps in February.

The policy would require a comprehensive review of each applicant. Besides academic factors such as GPA, class rank and test scores, admissions officers would consider race, income and personal history.

UW-Madison admissions officials already perform holistic review, and other UW campuses are developing policies to follow suit, pending the regents’ approval of the system policy.

The current policy says nonacademic factors enter the equation when an applicant’s credentials alone aren’t enough to win admission.