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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 7, 2002)
THE battau Opinion The Battalion Page 5B • Thursday, November 7, 2002 iversification or racism? dates’ donation may violate the law Ht 2nd k 17 10 1 P Gardenhire J. Torre n his first season os in contemioD ith 23 points, folio ngeles (22) and Da 18). ast week, Texas A&M announced MATTHEW MADDOX ■■uided the World (W« An gels to the biggest^” turnaround in the mami* ,, . Inis h'ng 7M7andha it University behlnd Seattle Dr. ibert M. Gates nated $50,000 of his own money for the ablishment of a minority scholarship. This is step forward to reducing the cost of higher ucation and two steps back for racial equality. A&M would like the public to believe that bacial gap between the census and A&M’s ident body is a matter of finances rather than ack of qualified applicants. This is false, xording to a May 2002 Dallas Morning ws article, A&M returned 17 times as much ant money to the state this year as Gates’ ntribution. Those grants target students of uon their division jMy means w jth no restrictions on race. Gates’ ‘ team was trwiaiaMnation, therefore, seems more for publicity Oarryl Kile and I Jan substance. ck. TheCardinabJlnan Oct. 25 debate, Lt. Gov. candidate ahead of second-f Jlin Sharp explained the situation students Tending World Slice. “I happen to believe that there is a group first round of tlie: Jchildren in this state that we are discrimi- jiants in theMciaptiing against when it comes to college. If you ppen to be the son or daughter of a wealthy > to nine first-pi ing fourdivisia i St. Louis. ontract ger Dusty Baker's:?■ Wednesday wi» ithertheduboite expressed inters nt vacancy, L sday with talkt- o discuss a til the season* pily, you can get your college paid for. If happen to be the son or daughter of a poor imily, there’s lots of needs-based scholarships |rthose children and that’s great too, but God you if you happen to be the son or daugh- Irof a middle-class family. There’s no schol- it'hip for you unless you are a National Merit Scholar.” Iht Houston Chronicle recently pointed out extension MwBitant salary paid to Texas university jfficials. Gates’ compensation from the tax- layers and students is $300,000 plus benefits. If Gates is willing to pay $50,000 in lip serv ice to “diversity,” perhaps those “non-diverse” the World Series5f stut * ents an< 1 Texans should demand their leven games toS! mone y Back and his salary reduced. Need ^ knows no race. If Gates truly wants A&M to tie its best, he should fund a scholarship for students of all races. ■ The;latest excuse for engineering “diversi- I) from local liberals is that the student popu- Btionmust ‘Took like Texas.” The fact is, the ffcoming class of freshmen most likely does not conform to the census. There are interna- onal and out-of-state students making up the &M student body. Also, the most qualified i U( fents seeking to enter college in Texas do ptTook like Texas” because individuals, not ices, determine their own success. Minority d non-minority applicants succeed on the I AT or in school not because there is a racial notain college admissions that needs to be lied-they do well because of their skills, he demand that privileges based on skill be 'stead allocated according to demographics proves that race is the first and last thing administrators see in students. Gates’ pledge will count towards the Texas A&M Foundation’s One Spirit One Vision fundraising campaign that calls for $50 million in alumni contributions towards diversity. According to the foundation’s Web site, it was created in 1953 to direct all major fund-raising activities and currently has a private, nonprofit, tax-exempt status. That may soon change. The Texas A&M Foundation can lose its tax- exempt status if it is racial ly discriminatory, accord ing to Roger Clegg, general counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity. “The Supreme Court ruled in the Bob Jones University v. United States that, Tt would be wholly incompatible with the con cepts under lying tax exemption to grant the benefit of tax-exempt status to racially discriminatory educa tional entities.’” The Center for Equal Opportunity has notified the A&M Board of Regents that it may be in violation of federal law. There is nothing wrong with good students of all backgrounds attending A&M, but rigging the system to discrimi nate against students for non-academic rea sons cannot be excused. A&M should halt its de facto discrimination through recruiting practices and scholarships. Looking like Texas is merely skin deep. Being ideologically or intellectually like Texas would be more academically relevant. Perhaps instead of a money-for-minorities program, the president could establish a “diversity” scholar ship program to overcome the imbalance of non-conservative faculty, so that A&M “thinks like Texas.” Matthew Maddox is a junior management major. Scholarship will help diversify A&M JENELLE WILSON R ecently, Texas A&M President Dr. Robert M. Gates announced he was donating $50,000 to establish the Foundation Excellence Award (FEA), a scholarship designed to help minority students attend college. Students are eligible for the scholarships if they meet admission requirements and are members of a minority group, from economically dis advantaged areas or from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. With this pledge. Gates is not only showing dedication to ensuring diversity on the A&M campus, he’s setting an example for other universi ty presidents to try to decrease ethnic disparity in higher education, especially in areas that have banned affirmative action policies. The FEA is granted through the Foundation Excellence program, which currently provides scholarships for 365 minority students at A&M. According to The Eagle, this program was formed four years ago, after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes the states of Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, ruled in Hopwood v. University of Texas Law School that race cannot be a factor for admis sion at a higher educa tion institution or for awarding scholarships. As a nonprofit organization, the Texas A&M Foundation is not bound by these rules. It is legal for private scholarships to be awarded to strictly minority or economically-challenged students. Higher education institutions in the Fifth Circuit and Eleventh Circuit, which has also ruled affirmative action policies in admission unconstitutional, have had to invent creative ways to increase the number of minority stu dents on their campuses. After Hopwood,the percentage of minority students noticeably decreased at A&M. The enrollment of black students in 2000 was just more than half what it was in 1995, before the Hopwood ruling. According to The Eagle, univer sities in states outside Fifth Circuit jurisdiction have been recruiting Texas minority students away from state universities because they can offer what Texas cannot: a way to pay for college. The state of Texas responded to the decreased minority enrollment numbers by establishing the top 10 percent rule. Officials had hoped that if minority students knew they would automatically be accepted into a state university, they would actually apply and attend. The program, however, has not worked as planned. Top 10 admissions for whites increased steadily from 1996 to 2000, according to the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute, while the opposite is true for minority admissions. The reason is money. While white students generally have little problem paying, minority students, in general, are less able to afford higher education. Only eight percent of Anglos in Texas are below the poverty level, compared to 26 percent of Hispanics and 19 percent of blacks, according to the Race and Ethnic Issues Institute. Half the minority students accepted to A&M in 1999 decided not to attend because they could not afford to, according to The Eagle. Unfortunately, according to The New York Times, merit-based grants going to stu dents whose parents earn more than $100,000 a year grew seven times faster between 1992 and 2000 than scholarships for those earning less than $20,000. While the FEA, which can provide up to $2,000 a year for up to four years, will not pay for everything, it will help those who actually need it. It will get students who would other wise skip college or attend out of state into an A&M classroom. A&M is overwhelmingly white - more than 80 percent - even though, according to the 2000 Census, Hispanics and blacks make up 43 per cent of the Texas population. These numbers are not going to change unless University officials actively seek to change them, which is exactly what Gates is attempting to do. A more diverse and integrated campus is in the best interests of all A&M students because it helps them become more accepting and knowl edgeable of other ethnicities. By pledging this money. Gates is not harming or taking away from white students. He is, however, trying to decrease the ethnic disparity present at A&M by showing he is personally committed to effecting change. The first step in doing that is to actually get more minority students enrolled and to help them pay for their education. Jenelle Wilson is a junior political science major. A balanced education Ate generation of journalists must be better trained s news consumers, readers should care -about the education finalists are receiving. 'st as you would learn MARIANO CASTILLO 3 °ut the education of a sctor who will operate on a loved one, the public 'Quid show the same concern for the professionals who e recording the day’s history. Readers should be aware at there is a raging debate over how journalists should “ educated because the decisions taken by deans at urnalism schools will directly impact the readers. The debate regarding whether journalism education 'Quid be based around practical experience or academic eor y is not new. For decades, universities have debated hether writing for the media is a profession or a craft, owever, the debate has garnered greater attention cently after Columbia University President Lee ollinger put the search for a new dean of journalism on dd. Bollinger instead put together a 30-member panel Journalism “all-stars” (filled with the likes of Bob 'oodward and Clarence Page) to rethink the mission 'd tenets of the department. With growing public discontentment for the media, e panel is a welcome sign. With luck, the attention it is oducing will lead the public to expect more of profes- °nal journalists. I Increased technology has made communication easier. 1 As a result, it is harder for journalists to find meaninglul I content to fill the greater number of media outlets. 1 Take, for instance, the coverage of the sniper shoot- | ] n 8 ; On any given day during the crisis, there was a very ; nnited amount of actual news. The filler that CNN and : | e other major networks were spewing was repetitive oi | 'rrelevant to the audience. One report depicted a female ) J 0ur nalist shooting at a target to demonstrate how easy it 18 to fire a rifle. Another important criticism of recent media coverage I 8 *ts inability to understand the scope and impoitance of 'nternational news. Last month’s bombing in Bali, for Sample, was an incident that, because of its terrorist links, should have been played much more prominently by the American media. Instead, it was mentioned as for eign occurrence with no impact on U.S. audiences. Wrong. When terrorists strike with a plan of that magni tude, it is of definite impact to Americans. The media did not take as many lessons as it should have from Sept. 11. These criticisms are valid evidence that who reports your news matters. The next generation of journalists must be better trained, and the solution to the debate is a simple one. Journalism schools must develop the right balance between experience and theory for the good of the American public. A journalist must gain hands-on train ing to be effective in the craft of writing, but must be intelligent enough to question whether the work they are producing is meeting the expectations of their audience. “The flap over Columbia’s new dean and direction ... misses the point,” wrote New York University’s Jon Katz. He is absolutely right. “Journalism's urgent need isn't in the choice between craft or scholarship. It needs help with relevance, and the courage to undertake real change and reform.” This issue is especially important to college-age people. As Katz correctly points out, “Journalism has become irrelevant to younger Americans, and marginalized by those vibrant and ascending new information cultures — computer gaming, movies, music, graphic design, soft ware, popular culture, the Net and the Web.” Not only is the public giving up on the idea of an objective, accurate media, but journalism students are also affected. There are some journalism students who find themselves disenchanted with the way the media covers certain events and are changing career paths. The result is a decrease in the would-be journalist talent pool, and an increase in the number of law school applicants. Journalism educators would be wise to listen to the public’s criticism and create a balance between the prac tical and scholarly that meets those standards. Mariano Castillo is a senior j animalism and international studies major. MAIL CALL Offering $1 million to fire Slocum tasteless In response to David Sanguesa's Nov. 6 mail call: A&M alumnus David Sanguesa urges that R.C. Slocum be replaced immediately, arguing that "For Vision 2020 we need leaders for our athletic programs." This sug gests a profound misunderstanding of what it means to be a top ten public university (the goal set forth in Vision 2020). As far as 1 can tell, the words "foot ball" and "sports" do not occur any where in the main Vision 2020 doc ument on the A&M Web site, "Creating a Culture of Excellence." This is as it should be, because uni versities are ranked on the basis of the quality of their teaching and research, not their sports teams' win/loss records. Sanguesa says he will give $1 mil lion so a new head football coach can be paid a $4 million annual salary. A one-time gift of $4 million would permanently endow four dis tinguished professorships, a few times that many new junior faculty or many times that number of under graduate scholarships. Any of these would genuinely further the goal of Vision 2020; a national football championship would not. Perhaps Sanguesa has given large sums of money to A&M before, and perhaps his donations have benefit- ted the University's mission of teach ing and research. If so, I certainly praise him and sincerely thank him for that. But his Wednesday letter suggests a regrettably myopic view of what makes a university great. Gary Varner Associate Professor of Philosophy I find yesterday's mail call letter offering $1 million disheartening. 1 could proclaim that I will give the University $1 billion if they keep Slocum as coach, but it means little. I'm sure Sanguesa enjoyed publically touting himself as financially lucra tive and a high roller, but his offer was in bad taste. For someone who is apparently as successful as himself, I would think he would have a better idea of appropriate forum and method of delivery. If his offer is valid. I'm sure the athletic department would be happy to hear from him. By calling attention to himself and his agenda through public mediums, he has instead done a disservice to the coaching staff, the players and above all to the University he claims to care so much for. Michael Balhoff Class of 2002 Slocum has given this University 30 years of his life, and has played a major role in preparing countless young men for challenges that they will face when football is gone. He took over as head coach at a time when A&M had a huge black mark against it, and has turned it into a reputable program. He runs a clean ship, and for the record, the Ags lost to Tech three of the four seasons in which you were a student (1982, 1983 and 1984), so the comment about us becoming inferior to Tech doesn’t hold much weight. No matter how bad the team is, Slocum deserves respect, and if it is his time to go, he should be able to hold his head up high, knowing that the Aggies have supported him, both when we're winning and when we're getting outscored. Andy Luten Class of 2005