U.S. seeks to halt women, minority fellowships

Parents Forum
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<p>U.S. seeks to halt minority, women fellowships
Justice Department says Southern Illinois’ scholarships are discriminatory </p>

<p>Updated: 8:09 p.m. ET Nov. 11, 2005
CARBONDALE, Ill. - Federal prosecutors are threatening to sue Southern Illinois University over three small graduate school scholarship programs aimed at women and minorities, saying they are discriminatory. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10008101/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10008101/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>I'm surprised that the University left itself open to this challenge.</p>

<p>Many colleges and university systems correctly understood Chief Renqhuist's majority opinion in the Michigan cases as providing a roadmap for legal challenges to admissions or scholarship programs based exclusively on race. The media misinterpreted the Michigan cases as a "victory" for affirmative-action, but those who give legal advice to colleges understood it quite clearly.</p>

<p>For example, Haverford/BrynMawr/Swarthmore have run a summer orientation program for their incoming minority students for about 20 years. This year, they changed the program to make it available to low-income white students as well, following a letter from the same group that initially challenged the scholarships in this article -- Linda Chavez' Center for Equal Opportunity.</p>

<p>Likewise, many scholarships previously limited to students of specific races have been quietly re-written to be open to any student who "furthers diversity on campus", which could include white students, either based on socio-economic characteristis or a strong EC interest in some kind of diversity effort. I believe that the College Board reworded some of their scholarships. It's pretty easy to bring the wording of scholarships into "wink and a nod" compliance without changing the actual outcomes.</p>

<p>Having said that, this shows how politically inept the Bush administration can be. They handed Obama a baseball bat to beat them over the head with at a time when they least need it. A more politically astute Justice Department would let Linda Chavez and her contributors fight their own legal battles on this issue. They are well-funded and quite capable of tailoring a case and recruiting a plaintiff as they showed in the Michigan cases. It's an issue that only really appeals to the hard-core Republican base.</p>