They are basic yes-no questions that ask whether a college applicant ever got into trouble in high school. Yet they're anything but simple, say some who want run-ins at school or with the law taken out of the college admissions equation.

Advocates, school districts and even some colleges share concerns about youthful mistakes haunting students into adulthood, especially minority students, who federal statistics show are suspended and arrested at disproportionately higher rates than their white peers.

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is calling for the removal of discipline questions from the Common Application used by more than 620 colleges and universities. The Center for Community Alternatives in Syracuse, New York, has issued similar appeals, saying that while most colleges collect the information, few have formal policies guiding its use.

“So long as racial disparities persist at every stage of our criminal justice system, we fully expect that these kinds of questions will unfairly deny educational opportunity to, or have a chilling effect on, African Americans and other minority groups,” wrote Kristen Clarke, Lawyers' Committee president and executive director, in a letter to the Common Application.

At a time of heightened vigilance against campus shootings and terrorism, admissions officials say questions about student discipline are seen as a necessary piece of a much larger picture.

“College admissions is trying to take educated risks, whether it be academic risks or students that have had indiscretions in their past,” said Kent Rinehart, dean of admission at Marist College and a board member of the National Association for College Admissions Counseling.

“After the Virginia Tech shooting, colleges really started to look closely at the responsibility the admissions office had in seeing whether there's some warning signs that are going to come along with it,” he said.

At Marist, the questions have turned up everything from private school students suspended for not pulling up their socks to cheating, cyberbullying and felony convictions. All, Rinehart said, are taken in context.

The Common Application, completed by 860,000 students last year, added the discipline questions at the request of participating universities in 2006-07. Colleges using their own applications often include them, as well.

New York University in January asked the Common Application to review whether the queries do anything to make campuses safer or discourage minority applicants.

The university, which uses the application, this year began ignoring whether the criminal conviction box had been checked until after an initial screening.