The Board of Regents in Georgia has adopted a reasonable and sadly necessary policy directing the University of Georgia and a number of other universities in the state not to grant admission to illegal aliens.

But in response, scores of faculty members at UGA have signed a misguided petition demanding that the board overturn that policy and allow UGA and the other universities to admit illegal alien students.

Bizarrely, the petition declares that denying college admission to people who are in the United States unlawfully "represents a step in the direction of resegregation of public education in our state."

Resegregation? That's absurd!

It isn't "segregation" to insist that taxpayer-funded institutions of higher learning not grant scarce spaces in their classrooms to people who are in the United States in violation of the law.

That not only forces taxpayers to subsidize illegal behavior, but it denies seats in those institutions to U.S. citizens, as well as to legal immigrants.

It is puzzling and troubling that faculty at a respected university would seek to confer benefits on people who have no right to be in America -- to the detriment of those who do have that right.