Author: mopress

A recently released survey of Texas colleges and universities, regarding proposed responses

to the Supreme Court’s Grutter ruling, yields a fascinating study in contrasts. Nowhere are the

contrasts more striking than in the differences found between two presidents at the Texas A&M campus in

College Station. Well known by now is the initiative of Texas A&M president Robert Gates to disregard

affirmative action in admissions for the College Station and Galveston campuses. But what has not been

noticed is the quiet work underway at the Texas A&M Health Science Center, headquartered “across the

tracks” in College Station.

The report that follows is based solely on documentary

evidence made available through open records requests and internet searches. But the documentary

differences are astonishing and instructive. At Texas A&M, it is the worst of times, but also the

best.

On Dec. 19, 2003, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board asked the state’s

colleges and universities to report the changes they were planning to make in the wake of the Supreme

Court’s Grutter decision. The 5-4 decision, handed down during the Summer of 2003, written by Justice

Sandra Day O’Connor, vindicated affirmative action as a constitutional practice, providing that certain

criteria were kept in mind.

The Grutter ruling ended a seven-year period in Texas,

during which a regional opinion handed down in the Hopwood case, was widely enforced as a prohibition

against affirmative action. On June 27, 2003, Texas A&M President Robert Gates posted a statement at

his official web page, declaring that:

“Last Monday’s Supreme Court decisions involving

the University of Michigan appear to level the playing field with other universities throughout the

country, enhancing our ability to attract high quality minority students. Texas A&M already has a

number of initiatives and programs under way consistent with Texas law to attract such students. We are

looking to see if the Supreme Court decision offers us additional opportunities to assist in attracting

a student body more representative of all Texans.”

So it came as a surprise to Texas

media, legislators, and civil rights organizations when Gates announced in December that he would not

be recommending the resumption of affirmative action in admissions.

The admissions

policy that the Gates administration ushered through the committee structure at Texas A&M made no

references to race or affirmative action. It made no mention of Grutter.

Accompanying

the written plan were other initiatives by president Gates to put money into scholarships, recruitment

of students and faculty of color, and hiring a vice president of diversity. According to the chair of

the Faculty Senate, Martha Loudder, “These recommendations had been made every year since I have been

involved in the Faculty Senate. It was only when Dr. Gates came to Texas A&M in September 2002 that any

of them were seriously considered by the administration. Every single one of them has been

implemented.”

Dr. Gates argued publicly that by concentrating funding and energies in

other areas, the goals of racial diversity could be achieved without resort to affirmative action in

admissions. And his arguments won support from an admissions committee and the faculty senate.

But Gates’ public arguments were not submitted in writing as part of the official

minutes for any of the reports. Furthermore, there is yet no record to reflect that Texas A&M

considered its unique responsibilities to the ongoing process of federally-supervised de-

segregation.

What we do have is a list of bullet points, outlining some of the criteria

that will be considered during the admissions process, along with a note from the admissions committee

chair, “that time is of the essence.” The undergraduate committee report went from recommendation,

through Faculty Senate, crossed the President’s desk, and was approved by the Chancellor as an agenda

item for the Board, all within two weeks’ time.

Many faculty at Texas A&M who identify

with diversity read the Gates initiative in terms of the many things that would be done for

scholarships and recruitment, at last. However, in the highly unusual rush to final adoption, the

public record does not demonstrate any care whatsoever to present the new policy as a response to

Grutter.

In fact, one month after the adoption of the new admissions policy, president

Gates was calling on Regents to abandon legacy considerations, too. But nowhere does the written

policy reflect any consideration of legacy admissions. So we are not yet sure what else Texas A&M is

doing that is not mentioned in the bare bones document.

All this is history that may be

skimmed over, if you have been following the news of these events during the past two months. A little

further down, we will approach the example of the Texas A&M Health Science Center. But first, a brief

word about the responses from other university systems in Texas.

In contrast to the

Texas A&M reply, which returns an already-adopted document that makes no mention of Grutter, the

Coordinating Board also divulges working statements from Texas Tech University and the University of

Houston. The Tech proposal says that, “A category for ‘Diversity of Experience’ will be added to the

review process. Diversity of experience may include, but will not be limited to, study abroad,

knowledge of other cultures, proficiency in other languages, race/ethnicity and experience with college

preparatory programs.”

UH policy makers conclude that, “Therefore, to the extent

necessary to achieve a diverse student body, and after race neutral alternatives have proven

unsuccessful, we believe each component institution should have the discretion to adopt admission

policies which consider the totality of each individual applicant’s background and strengths, including

but not limited to cultural history, ethnic origin, race, hardships overcome, service to others, extra

curricular activities, grades, test scores and work experience. Further, an applicant’s background,

including race and ethnicity, should be an allowable but not determinative consideration in awarding

some discretionary scholarships.”

These statements by other university administrations

in Texas address Grutter directly as a policy matter for Regents to take seriously. Similar language

is being proposed by the University of Texas at Austin and North Texas University. Compared with their

peer systems in Texas, the documentary record from Texas A&M is peculiar in that it fails to take

notice in writing of the fact that a new constitutional framework is at hand.

Perhaps

this is why the Journal for Blacks in Higher Education offered the following headline on Dec. 11:

“Hopwood is Dead, but the Ruling Lives on at Texas A&M.”

The peculiar document produced

by the Gates administration is all the more astonishing when contrasted with the reported response from

the Texas A&M Health Science Center in College Station. Here is the complete text from the

Coordinating Board’s survey results:

“Health Science Center programs supply graduates to

meet the health workforce needs of Texas. Committees in each HSC discipline (Medicine, Dentistry,

Dental Hygiene, Public Health, and Graduate Education) are currently aligning admission requirements

with health workforce needs of Texas and these committees will recommend how race and ethnicity are to

be used, among many other factors, in a narrowly tailored fashion during the admission process. When

committee recommendations have been completed and submitted to the HSC President for review and action

changes to HSC admission requirements will be presented to the A&M System Office and the A&M Board of

Regents. If approved at that leve
l, State law requires they be published one year prior to use in the

admission process.”

What could be better than that? Right there in river city.

A brief examination of the Health Science Center web page helps to clear up the

mystery. The President’s name is Nancy W. Dickey, MD. Prior to her appointment as president on Jan.

1, 2002, she had served as the first woman physician president of the American Medical Association.

She is editor-in-chief of a widely-lauded internet company, Medem, which provides secure email

communication for doctor-patient correspondence and a fine library of medical

information.

We worry a little that we are so profoundly impressed by Dr. Dickey’s

leadership. We intend to do her career no harm.

For further reading, we recommend her

paper on “Regional Disparities in Health Spending,” where she argues for a methodology called “evidence

based medicine.” Notice her crucial argument, that traditions of hierarchical knowledge must give way

to independent inquiry and accessible sources.

Again, we’re sorry to put you on the

spot, Dr. Dickey, but we’d like to see you invited across campus some day.

By Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier
by permission

This week I veer from my usual political harangues to recommend a recent (2008) Hollywood movie, available at Blockbuster everywhere. Don’t be hypercritical; it’s been over a year since I have recommended a movie.

It’s The Visitor — and I was enjoyably surprised this week that its lead, Richard Jenkins, received an Academy Award nomination for best actor, even though he is not very well known and the movie is fairly low budget. Although the title, The Visitor, first reminded me of those scary 1950’s horror movies like The Thing, it is a simple, quiet film, deceptively sleepy, about a college professor, Walter, who is approaching retirement age and is stuck like a cliché in a rut. My favorite scene is when he takes out last semester’s syllabus and a bottle of “white-out.” Removing last semester’s date on the top of the syllabus, he then handwrites the new semester’s date onto the page. Beginning another semester, Walter will stand up and teach the same old stuff, again.

He is supposedly writing a book, asking his department for fewer classes so he can complete it, but we can tell his heart is not in that either. He supposedly has written an important conference paper with another professor, but we find that he barely knows what the paper is about. We are given one scene of Walter in front of a classroom and he seems animated enough, but we can’t help remembering that syllabus — he has been recycling this course for years.

To say Walter is in a rut, however, does not identify the problem accurately. His real problem is that he has made himself unteachable.

In an opening scene of The Visitor, we see Walter trying almost valiantly to learn to play the piano on the weekend. But he becomes totally disgusted with the piano teacher, who usually gives lessons to children. Commenting that Walter should let his fingers be curved, arched up, more when he plays, the piano teacher tells him to think of his hands and fingers arched up as a tunnel so a miniature train could run underneath. Walter frowns, feeling this advice is better suited for a child, and he cancels further lessons with the teacher. He later admits this is the fourth piano teacher he has canned.

Letting the train get through is a wonderful image, and incidentally it is a subtle reference to another film. The writer and director of The Visitor is a Hollywood newcomer, Tom McCarthy, and this is only his second film. But his first movie caused a little quiet stir too, The Station Agent. (My daughter, who is in grad school in Philosophy and is my cell phone link to popular culture, has seen The Station Agent three times.) It opens with a dwarf working with model trains. I will not review The Station Agent, although it also reminds us that we must struggle with ourselves to become teachable. (If you haven’t seen them, Tom McCarthy’s two films, I suggest you see The Visitor first — it’s better — but I suspect the two films are somehow part of an emerging trilogy…McCarthy will have something else, new, roaring down the miniature train track soon.)

I’m reminded of a medieval philosophy class I once took — I know I should use a better transition here — which discussed the virtue of “docility,” which did not imply passivity as it does today. Almost opposite to today’s connotation, to be “docile” meant to be teachable, which requires an active process. Docility is an openness to others and to the wider “Being” of life and the world. (Medieval Church thinkers like Aquinas reminded people to not get too focused on this particular task or this little concern, this particular “being” or that particular “being,” but people should develop a certain awe for the “Being” of it all, all life and all existence.)

Anyway, my Medieval Philosophy professor once explained “docility’’ to our class with a personal example. Although my professor always prided himself on being open to reality and life, one day he noticed that he strangely disliked learning from people younger than himself. I can picture my old prof at a conference, staring up at the podium to some younger scholar and just being so tense and closed, but then suddenly shaking himself and saying, “Oops, what’s wrong with me? I am lacking docility. Aquinas would be disappointed.”

Be teachable. Learn from everyone, learn from life, learn from Being. That is Aquinas’ message (or at least the Aquinas I like), and it’s Tom McCarthy’s theme too.

The Visitor is my New Years gift. Walter, the economist and professor, does finally open himself up and does find a new rhythm in life…I will not spoil the movie for you, but he begins to learn from the young, the Other. The movie is also valuable in the way it portrays Walter discovering how America is locking up the Other in detention centers, refusing to welcome, to visit, to be teachable.

Frankly, the only reason I first rented The Visitor was that I had heard about its nested discussion of a detention center, and in the film we are surely shown some of the pain our immigration system is causing and the vulnerability of our undocumented workers. A young couple, both undocumented, a young musician from Syria and his girlfriend from Senegal — both characters are splendidly cast by McCarthy — are in love and are obviously the hope of America. But Walter, the comfortable economics professor, learns that his America does not want the young couple here.

Although clearly mocking America’s closed attitudes, The Visitor — one referent for the title is that Walter visits the detention center — is not a movie exposing some startling truth about American immigration policy; the detention center in New York is no secret. It is right there, that medium-sized building on that block.

What is important to me about the film is its discussion of education and proper docility, although it is not like Dead Poet’s Society or other films where a dynamic teacher inspires the young to learn. This film is about “youth as reason” (a concept I borrow from radical philosopher Raya Dunayevskaya), about youth teaching. And if we listen to each other and hold our hands just right, we all, old timers as well, can let the train go through.

I promise a regular grumpy political article next week.

An action alert and photos of the Ibrahim children, circulated by Rita Zawaideh, played pivotal roles in the growing awareness that made release of the Ibrahim family possible. Below is her press release just received–gm

The Ibrahim family mother and the children have been released

On behalf of the Arab American Community Coalition (AACC) of Seattle we want to thank all of those groups and individuals who have contributed to the release of the Ibrahim family from the Hutto Detention Center, and hopefully shortly from the Haskell Detention Center for the father.
We would like to particularly thank Ralph Isenberg of Dallas for his thoughtful and relentless efforts to bring this ordeal to this satisfactory conclusion.
Without his efforts, it is doubtful that this positive result would have been achieved.

We would also like to thank the legal teams , namely Theodore Cox, Joshua Bard avid, Domingo Garcia and John Wheat Gibson.

This ordeal should not have started, in the first place, since none of the detainees represented any danger to this community. On the contrary, they were positive contributors, in every respect, to their community. Furthermore, the Ibrahim family was subjected to transgressions in the application of many laws, not to mention the less than humane treatment at the Hutto facility, for children of such age.

We thank the members of the press for their attention to the plight of the Ibrahim family and who contributions must have alerted the officials to the proper attention this case should have gotten and to the fact that is was not going away.

We want to thank all the supports and organizations that wrote letters on their behalf and also supported them monetary for their legal fees.

We wish the Ibrahim family a normal and legal life, whatever they chose to live, in the immediate and the far future.

Wagih Abu Rish
AACC

Rita Zawaideh

John Wheat Gibson reports that phone calls seeking information about his clients, the Suleiman family, have gone unanswered by Dallas-area deporation officer Calvin Meredith. So we do not know whether the Suleiman family was deported as scheduled last Monday.

The Suleimans were one of three known Palestinian families arrested during a pre-election abduction exercise by Immigration and Cusitoms Enforcement (ICE).

Among the members of the Suleiman family are twin girls, age four, who were not incarcerated, because they are American-born citizens. Are they in Texas or Jordan? Their lawyer has not been informed.

Several materials about the Suleiman family may be found in our story archives. –gm