Another Racially Exclusive Program Challenged

According to an article by Peter Schmidt in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education, “Advocacy Group Challenges Program for Minority Journalists as Discriminatory,” a lawsuit has been filed against yet another racially exclusive academic program.

The Center for Individual Rights, which has been a leader in the fight against affirmative action, alleges that the Virginia Commonwealth University Urban Journalism Workshop engages in illegal racial discrimination by excluding white students. It argues that the program’s race-exclusive eligibility criteria violate the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees equal protection under the law, as well as various federal civil-rights statutes, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial and ethnic discrimination by educational institutions that receive federal funds.

Richard Holden, executive director of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, “refused to comment on the lawsuit or to say whether the two-week Virginia Commonwealth program and others like it are race-exclusive.” Despite the refusal to comment, there seems to be little doubt about the racial exclusivity:

The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund’s guidelines for newspapers and colleges involved with such summer workshops say “each participant must be a minority (defined as U.S. citizens who are black, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaskan Native.)”

This article, like all of Schmidt’s reporting in the Chronicle, is fair and balanced. Still, I confess that I find it a bit jarring that Schmidt refers to the Center for Individual Rights, the Center for Equal Opportunity, and the American Civil Rights Institute as “advocacy groups” when groups like the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund are regularly described (as here, to pick just one example) as “civil rights organizations.”

What CIR, CEO, and ACRI advocate is colorblind equal opportunity for everyone without regard to race, creed, or color. Although the NAACP et. al. used to make that same argument, the official mission of many “civil rights organizations,” like the NAACP, is to defend the interests of one group, which they now do by arguing for the continuation of preferences for their group based on race or ethnicity.

I think it demeans, even if subtly, those groups dedicated to defending the rights of everyone to be free from racial discrimination to describe them as “advocacy groups” while reserving the label “civil rights organizations” for those groups who oppose colorblind equality and defend preferences based on race or ethnicity. Insofar as “advocacy groups” defend a narrow interest and “civil rights groups” are dedicated to protecting the rights of everyone, the current and common labeling conventions should be reversed.

Say What? (10)

  1. dchamil September 26, 2006 at 4:16 pm | | Reply

    These remarks are very persuasive. The court decides for Mr. Rosenberg!

  2. superdestroyer September 26, 2006 at 7:10 pm | | Reply

    VCU fails the “Shannon Faulkner” test. No court in the country will find for VCU.

  3. David Nieporent September 27, 2006 at 3:03 am | | Reply

    John, you’re slipping. You forgot to comment on this:

    The Center for Individual Rights, which has been a leader in the fight against affirmative action

    Isn’t that your cue to point out that they don’t oppose affirmative action — only the sort of affirmative action that involves race preferences?

  4. John Rosenberg September 27, 2006 at 7:34 am | | Reply

    David – You’re right. It is. But I now have so much confidence in my support team here that I know someone will catch the ones that get away from me….

  5. superdestroyer September 27, 2006 at 8:42 am | | Reply

    Check out the application process for the same program at Monmouth College in New Jersey.

    http://bluehawk.monmouth.edu/enovek/application.html

    I love how the application does not say that whites cannot apply but that the racial classification process is done in such a way that many people would not know what to check. I also like the part about submitting a picture. My guess is that the program ends up being almost all black students since any Asian-American would quickly intrepret that a program for “students of color” is not really for them.

  6. sharon September 27, 2006 at 10:30 am | | Reply

    The newspaper I worked for had a minority internship program with its parrent corporation. The internship was great, but I was informed in no uncertain terms that I was not eligible because I was white. Unfortunately, the same corporation forced most young people to go through that program before they would hire them so they would look “good” with the corporate offices. Didn’t seem like it was all that egalitarian to me.

  7. GD September 27, 2006 at 11:39 am | | Reply

    I can still remember back in 1990 as a high school junior when my public high school biology teacher announced that UC Irvine had a summer program for minority students interested in pre-med. At that time I planned on attending UC Irvine as a pre-med student. It sure felt like second class citizenship to me, delivered by not one but two state actors.

  8. Cobra September 28, 2006 at 4:44 pm | | Reply

    Fill me in again…

    What race are Hispanics and Native Americans again?

    –Cobra

  9. David Nieporent September 29, 2006 at 12:25 am | | Reply

    Fill me in again…

    What race are Hispanics and Native Americans again?

    Not to sound all Clintony, but that depends what your definition of “Race” is. According to the census bureau, Hispanic isn’t a race; Hispanics are generally either black or white. The EEOC disagrees, though.

    Then again, until the 20th century, the word “race” was commonly used to mean what we mean today by ethnicity — you’d hear talk of the “Jewish race” or the “Irish race” — so the answer could be Hispanic and Indian.

    Do you have a point to your question?

  10. Cobra September 29, 2006 at 4:37 pm | | Reply

    David asks:

    >>>”Do you have a point to your question?”

    Certainly. Look at the statement by the right-winged think-tank funded C.I.R.

    >>>”The Center for Individual Rights, which has been a leader in the fight against affirmative action, alleges that the Virginia Commonwealth University Urban Journalism Workshop engages in illegal racial discrimination by excluding white students.”

    Now, by your OWN definition here:

    >>>”According to the census bureau, Hispanic isn’t a race; Hispanics are generally either black or white.”

    How can a minority outreach program that includes Hispanics exclude “whites?”

    –Cobra

Say What?