Category: Uncategorized

[Quote:] Despite the small percentage gains over the twenty-year period,

the number of minority
students and faculty, when viewed as a percentage of the total, remains

small. This is
particularly true of African Americans and Hispanics students. TAMU is basically an

enclave
for the education of white students by white faculty. In addition, although our

undergraduate
students are primarily white U.S. citizens, over half of our graduate students are

from foreign
countries or hold nonresident status. Overall, this is an indication of TAMU’s growing

inability
at both the undergraduate and graduate levels to effectively attract, retain, and educate

diverse
Texan and American citizens despite the need to do so as reflected in the increasing

diversity of
Texas’ college age population. In fact, over the last twenty years there has been a

12.9 percent
growth in our state’s minority population but TAMU still serves the same population

that it did
in 1981. We do note, however, that the sizeable increase in the proportion of women

students
and the increase in the percent of women faculty at TAMU is a major achievement over the

past
two decades.[end quote, Student and Faculty Minority Conditions at Texas A&M University: A

Longitudinal Comparison of the Years 1981, 1991, and 2001. June, August 2002. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY, pdf

p. 4, see links for complete pdf.]

(To

begin Week Two of the legitimation crisis in civil rights that was precipitated by the Texas A&M Board

of Regents, The Texas Civil Rights Review returns to the question of affirmative action as a civil

right.)

Summary: In 1980 the Texas A&M University Regents adopted affirmative action as

a “good faith” commitment to civil rights. In 2000, Governor George W. Bush agreed that affirmative

action would be pursued according to “controlling law.” With “controlling law” now back on the

side of affirmative action in 2003, what gives the Regents the right to reverse their own “good

faith” policy?

I have read with interest some of the weekend news reports that still

fail to acknowledge certain basic facts, chief among them being that Texas is one of a few states that

enjoys special status because the US Dept. of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has determined that

the state exhibits vestiges of segregation…..

This dimension of the question I am

dismayed to see buried under language about “diversity” and “preferences.” In fact, crucial civil

rights issues are being affected, and the people of Texas so far have not been given any explanation of

the likely civil rights implications of the Texas A&M policy, from either the president, Board of

Regents, Governor, or media reports.

To document the question more closely, here is a

quote (copied and pasted) from the “Texas Commitment” to the Office of Civil Rights signed by

Governor George W. Bush on May 11, 2000 and cited in the Fourth Texas Plan, p. 42 [a pdf version of the

Fourth Texas Plan may be found at the following

URL:

http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/reports/pdf/0313.pdf%5D

Here is what

Governor George W. Bush promised:

“It is understood that when the public agencies or

institutions of higher education in Texas implement any of the measures or operate any

other
programs relating to admissions or financial aid in a race-conscious manner, they must operate

in conformity with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, and its implementing regulations,

applicable federal court case law, including Fordice, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke,

438
U.S. 265 (1978), Hopwood v. Texas, 78 F.3d 932 (5th Cir. 1996), and the U.S. Department of

Education’s published policy regarding race-targeted
financial aid, 59 Federal Register 4271 (Feb.

23, 1994), so long as they are controlling law.”

That is the verbatim

clip.

After the overthrow of Hopwood, doesn’t “controlling law” indicate that

affirmative action is a constitutional civil right, especially necessary under the textbook conditions

presented by Texas A&M University?

In 1980, the Texas A&M Board of Regents voluntarily

adopted a policy that included a “Commitment to Numerical Objectives.” Here’s what Texas A&M

University System Chancellor said at the time:

“The adoption of this resolution by the

Board will be the first official step taken by any governing board in Texas toward voluntary

compliance; and, in my view, will go a long way toward excluding Texas from the list of states who are

scheduled to receive letters of compliance from the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of

Education. If we can adopt this resolution and begin its good faith implementation, in the company of

other major colleges and universities in Texas, this action may well enable us to manage our own

affairs in the carrying out of various desegregation activities”

Affirmative action,

in other words, is the price that Texas A&M agreed to pay in order to maintain other freedoms in its

so-called desegregation strategy. From where, suddenly, did the Texas A&M Board of Regents derive the

freedom to de-segregate without affirmative action?

[For reference to the above document

from Chancellor Frank Hubert please visit the html collection of the Texas Civil Rights review

at:
http://pages.prodigy.net/gmoses/tcrr/edudocs.htm#hubert80a%5D

It has not yet been

made clear how the Texas A&M Board of Regents considered the special obligations that the school should

respect as a party to commitments that it made in 1980 and that were recently renewed by the Governor

in 2000.

So I restate the dilemma we face if we consider the decision by the Texas A&M

Regents as a “civil rights” decision.

Either the Board of Regents did not consider the

question of their civil rights obligations, and thereby disregarded their “good faith” civil rights

commitment altogether, or the board acted with respect to some specific judgment, advice, or consent

that has not been fully explained to the people of Texas.

Certainly, the statement

issued by the Texas A&M President addresses many things, but it does not address the question of

affirmative action as a commitment to “civil rights.”

In the absence of any discussion

whatsoever about this crucial matter, it would seem that the Texas A&M Board of Regents, which once led

the state into “Numerical Commitments” is now opening the gate the other way.

Who

would have given their support to the Texas A&M initiative if they had known the likely implications

for civil rights?

Under the Fordice ruling, which still stands as controlling law (even

as Hopwood has fallen) it would be presumed that states finding themselves in predicaments such as

Texas would be “expected” to administer a constitutional plan of affirmative

action.

Is the Texas A&M decision changing the shape of “controlling law” in civil

rights? Until the questions are fully addressed, I remain worried. It looks like the Texas A&M

decision has civil rights implications larger than the College Station campus. Furthermore, it looks

like the Board of Regents has not exemplified “excellence in leadership” when it comes to civil

rights.

What it looks like is that the Texas A&M Board of Regents promised to undertake

affirmative in “good faith” only so long as it could find no reason to break the promise. First

chance it had to wiggle out, there it went, without any “civil rights” discussion. That’s what the

evidence suggests so far.

Citizens of Texas deserve a full accounting from the Texas A&M

Board of Regents as to how their decision provides “leadership excellence” in the struggle for civil

rights in Texas.

The following note responds to articles that were published at CounterPunch

Dear Mr. Moses,
Thank you for

informing me about what’s going on in Texas. I do think at the heart of it is that white people do

not respect or understand black people. I’m white myself, and I see this kind of ignorance as willful

and damaging, both to whites and to blacks.
So many times colleagues of mine at the minimum

security prison where I teach refuse to open their ears to the nuances of African American

speech.
They don’t seem to understand that the experience of a black man or woman is so different

from theirs. They can accept Oprah…but to realize that a black man who has been subjected to violence

since the day he’s been born and yet can still stand in front of you and say, “I’m a man,” that

this is greatness.

Yesterday a man told me about the visions he had the two times he was

shot in the head. I tried to talk to my fellow workers about him, but they just cynically brushed off

his insights and laughed about his experiences.

We whites don’t understand the surreal

nature of American life for black people, the boundedness and lack of control that blacks are subjected

to. I learned first about all this in college, reading Richard Wright
and Toni Morrison, and then

saw their enactment when I started working in a prison. It’s not that we whites have no souls, but

sometimes I’m sure it must seem that way to blacks.

In sadness,

Congratulations to the Austin-American Statesman for its scholarship

and initiative in the Jan. 25, 2004 report by Erik Rodriguez and Andy Alford that shows Austin TX

police are 100 percent more likely to use force against African-Americans than

whites.

The report is a rare and laudible example of careful analysis done independently

by journalists; not simply reporting what others have found. Well done!–gm