Category: Uncategorized

“The need for change is the expansion of the faculty; more minority

recruitment in terms of our obligation to the state of Texas; expanding our research effort and taking

it to a new, national level; having A&M play on a national stage in important arenas; and more national

recognition for the achievements of our faculty.”

Texas A&M President Robert Gates

interview with Houston Chronicle reporter Todd Ackerman, Jan. 24, 2003. I read this (Jan. 26) within

an hour after talking to a state regulator who says there’s really not much the state is empowered to

do when it comes to directing A&M’s “obligations” to diversity. Placing “minority recruitment” in

the category of “obligations to the state of Texas” is an interesting construction. There were no

follow up questions published in the interview.

A University of Texas task force wants the Legislature to put a cap on the number of

students admitted under a law guaranteeing admission for those who graduated in the top 10 percent of

their high school class. [AP Jan. 29, 2004.]

Editor’s Note: See below Sen. Jeff

Wentworth’s comment to an El Paso reporter, that affirmative action would yield fewer total complaints

from the public than ten percent.

Civil Rights does not mean equal opportunity, it means
equal results. We do not

even have equal opportunity in many situations
(education, job income, etc.) and even if we did, IT

WOULD NOT BE
ENOUGH. It is time to take back from the white man what he has taken from us
for

so long. Affirmative action is a first step, but we must go
further. We MUST require quotas for

corporate America and educational
institutions to ensure we get what we deserve and are entitled

to. Texas A&M
should be stripped of all state funds until it establishes an
affirmative action

policy, and if black students don’t exceed the percentage of
the general populace within 4 years,

funds should be revoked
PERMANENTLY. First steps to freedom! [tsmith5001@yahoo.com 1/9/2004]

Email: “Hola, Greg”
from Professor Marco Portales,
Texas A&M

University
Thu, 29 Jan 2004

Dear Greg,

Glad I have your e-mail

address from your
Texas Civil Rights Review website. Good to
see some outside help. I read your

letter to
the Eagle and the one to the Battalion and
meant to write to you . . . but I

have
been busy finishing the books listed below.
I have been writing on the race issue

for
awhile, as you may have gathered. FYI: When the minority faculty and staff met

with
President Gates on campus on December 18th,
2003 (a meeting that was not reported by any

of
the media), four Latino faculty members
stood up, as well as several other faculty

and
staff TAMU members, to urge him to follow
the Grutter decision, to leave legacy behind,

and
to do several other things that we believe would
improve our chances of recruiting more

minority
students and faculty. But he was already committed
to the position of admitting

applicants only on
“merit” considerations, excluding race anew (as
Hopwood, which has now been

superseded)
required between 1996 and 2003.

Below I am sending you my recent

and
forthcoming publications, two of which
address the issue of why we should embrace
race, in

keeping with the Constitution. As
you can see, I don’t buy the way conservative
groups have

interpreted the 14th Amendment
for their convenience, just as they had it their
way before the

Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Part of the problem is that they always want it
their way, and only

their way, without working to
bring in the perspectives of minorities.
Fortunately, Justice

O’Connor saw the
constitutionality of Bakke. So we are
constitutionally correct; the problem is

that
they have the power and the support of the
general public,

unfortunately….

Best

regards,
Marco

_____________________________

BOOK MANUSCRIPTS

under Contract for Publication

“Quality Education for Latinos: Print and Oral Skills

for All Students, K-College”; this book manuscript, written with my wife, Rita Portales, is designed

to produce more academically-competitive minority students. The 272-page manuscript received an

advanced contract from the University of Texas
Press in the summer of 2003 and will be published

late in 2004 or early 2005

“Latino Sun, Rising: Our Spanish-speaking U.S. World” is a

collection of 44 essays divided into three parts: Youth (8), Parenthood (12), and Public Policy Issues

(24).

The Texas A&M Press will published this 310-page
manuscript in Fall 2004

BOOK

CrowdingOut Latinos: Mexican Americans in the Public

Consciousness Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000; 209 pages

FORTHCOMING

ARTICLE

“A History of Latino Segregation Lawsuits” in The Unfinished Agenda of Brown

v. Board of Education, edited by James Anderson; Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, (March or

April, 2004, 20 pp.

REFEREED PUBLICATIONS

“Can the Supreme Court

Constitutionally Uphold the
Hopwood Opinion? Race, ‘Color-blindness’ and Public Opinion before

Bakke,” Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts & Letters , Volume 26, Number 1, Winter 2003,

26-46. Article traces the history of the concept of “color- blindness” from the Reconstruction Period

following the Civil War to Bakke and Hopwood.

“Examining the Recruitment and

Enrollment of Eligible Hispanic and African American Students at Selective Public Texas

Universities,” New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1999, Volume 16, Readings on Equal Education, an education

series. One of eleven articles in Education of Hispanics in the United States: Politics, Policies and

Outcomes, pp. 201-222.

“Hopwood, Race, Bakke and the Constitution,” Texas Hispanic

Journal of Law and Policy, University of Texas School of Law publication, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring

1998, pp. 29-44.

“Anti-Hopwood: Why Race Ought to be Legally Recognized,” The

Hopwood Effect: Problems, Prospects, and Impacts on Minorities in Higher Education; conference

proceedings, edited by Mitchell Rice, Race and Ethnic Studies Institute, Texas A&M University, Fall

1998; pp. 172-176.

“Affirmative Action: Best Idea, So Far,” Hispanonoticias: The

Hispanic Caucus of the American Association for Higher Education, featured one-page article; June

1995.

“K-12 Education and the Responsibilities of the University,” one-page excerpt

published by HACU, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities; Seventh Annual Meeting

presentation; Washington, D.C., October 1993.