EDITORIAL: AFFIRMATIVE
Unfortunately, we can't figure out if its the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision on affirmative action or the current posture of this university in response to said decision.
All the PR statements and the two recent Rice community meetings seemed to paint this university in a very good light, but a closer examination of the issue shows that the paint is peeling and the light is very dim.
After a recent conversation with a Houston Chronicle news reporter who had been interviewing Houston-area lawyers and law professors, the Thresher learned that the lawyers were shocked by Rice's answer to the court decision. The lawyers contended that Rice was not really subject to the court decision and that there were several loopholes to the decision. (For the time-being, we'll keep the names of the lawyers under wraps and just call them "a group of highly-qualified lawyers" -- sounds familiar, doesn't it?)
This revelation led to a closer examination of the decision and the way it was written. Sure enough, there seem to be some large loopholes. Now, we're no law experts, so we won't go into a long legal analysis, but several passages stand out.
One passage reads, "We also agree with Mr. Justice POWELL that a plan like the "Harvard" plan ... is constitutional under our approach, at least so long as the use of race to achieve an integrated student body is necessitated by the lingering effects of past discrimination." (emphasis added). Now, this is actually a statement from the Bakke trial, but the writers of the opinion agree with this statement.
As always, it can be argued whether there are lingering effects, but may we remind people of the history of this university -- a history which includes an active KKK chapter, a 17-year stalling job by the administration to admit blacks before they took it to court (where they attached another change to the charter for tuition -- sneaky), the poor treatment of Charlie Freeman in 1968 and yearly debates in the Thresher about affirmative action and race relations? Sounds like discrimination still exists in some way, shape or form.
There are many more loopholes which would make a very large paper, but there are other problems that need to be addressed here. This university, as seen during that 17-year stall, has been behind the times in race relations. President Malcolm Gillis has changed this to some extent (e.g. making MLK day a staff holiday last week), but we are still behind the times.
Why are we not taking an active national role in this issue? The Thresher acknowledges that there is merit to challenging a decision within the system, but major change can only happen with strong actions outside of the system. We should be going public. Rice has every right to call a Rice community meeting, but by doing so, they exiled the Houston Chronicle. This exiled the only real source to affect change while forcing the media sources to scramble for sound bites about race relations. We must abuse the media. We must make some sort of stand and fight for what we feel is right. To this point, Rice has supported affirmative action and hinted at still supporting it
Thus, we have made our position known. Let's fight. If the administration is so concerned about increasing numbers of minority students, do they not realize that a strong national stand on the issue would accomplish much more than having a warm, fuzzy community on Owl Day? But the administrators are not the only ones at fault. Students need to fight. Demonstrate. Voice your opinions loud and often. Letters are great, but actions speak much louder. What happened to that fervor students used to have? Most of the Rice community can't even remember the 1987 demonstration march of 175 students in support of a biology teacher who was denied tenure. It's time to relive an old Rice tradition -- actually caring about an issue.
This item appeared in the Opinion section of the March 29, 1996 issue.
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