Irene Chang, a junior at Berkeley, had not planned to apply for a credit card. Then she heard a rumor that students who asked for a Visa card or MasterCard at a campus Citibank booth were rejected if they were majoring in the humanities. An English major and a reporter for the college paper, the Daily Californian, Chang asked the company representative if the rumor was true. Said Chang: "She told me, 'Just put in either business administration or electrical engineering.' "
After Chang broke the story of the peculiar policy last week, some enraged students proposed banning Citibank representatives and...