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See the web page

at:
http://orpheus.tamu.edu/fcic/positions.html
Texas A&M Faculty Concerned for an

Inclusive Campus posts website Feb. 9, 2004, following is an archive of the initial

statement:

FCIC Positions on Diversity at TAMU

Faculty Committed to an

Inclusive Campus (FCIC) is a group of faculty at Texas A&M University that seeks to increase diversity

at TAMU and make our campus a welcoming environment for everyone. FCIC has a broad vision of diversity

which includes race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and identity, religion, geographic

origin, age, and disability. We appreciate the opportunity to state our views at this meeting and

would like to present the following statement.

1. We urge President Gates to reverse

his stated policy on admissions and consider race and ethnicity as central factors in admissions as

well as in recruitment and financial decisions. On the matter of admissions, FCIC believes that the

current policy will not increase the student diversity at TAMU. The University of Texas is already far

more diverse than TAMU, has a much better reputation for being welcoming to minorities, and will be

considering race and ethnicity in their admissions procedure. In this context, how can TAMU expect to

compete for minority students? TAMU must consider race and ethnicity in admissions.

2.

Admissions is only one part of this issue, and we urge the President to adopt a comprehensive plan for

increasing diversity on campus.

A. Reallocate the funding from the Reinvestment Faculty

Hiring Program to target 25% of the new positions to candidates from under-represented groups,

including women, racial and ethnic minorities, and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered faculty.

Include in the reallocation funding to create or bolster academic programs that specifically address

diversity concerns—an academic program in Race and Ethnic Studies, an expanded Women’s Studies Program,

and a program in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Studies.

B. Create clear

goals and timetables for increasing diversity. Increase the presence of under-represented groups among

the faculty and staff to 20% by 2007. Increase the presence of under-represented groups among the

student population to 20% by 2007 and to 25% by 2010.

C. Create scholarships and

financial aid programs whose criteria explicitly consider race and ethnicity. This should include a

Youth Scholars Program modeled after the one at The Ohio State University which will nurture young,

talented, underprivileged children from the ninth grade forward and encourage them to attend TAMU.

D. Review the mission statements and effectiveness of The Department of Multicultural

Services and the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute and consider placing all existing diversity

organization on campus under a well-funded Center for Diversity. The Center’s mission would include

student support programs, research on campus diversity, and outreach. Its activities should include the

following.

Establish a university-wide Diversity Campaign designed to make awareness of

diversity issues an element of every part of the TAMU education from Fish Camp to Graduation Day. The

task force that runs this campaign should model some of its programs on those of the current Academic

Integrity Task Force and should establish a Code of Conduct with regards to diversity.

Create a widely publicized and well-funded office to investigate incidents of discrimination and

harassment directed at under-represented groups.

Create an aggressive campaign targeted

at both TAMU and Texas as a whole to promote a “New Aggie Spirit” that is appreciative of diversity in

all of its manifestations.

Work with the Faculty Senate to review and strengthen the

current diversity requirement in the TAMU core curriculum.

3. FCIC feels it is essential

that the administration understands that the diversity issues that TAMU faces are structural as well

as cultural and must be addressed through policy changes and substantial funding. We urge President

Gates to consult with FCIC in general and under-represented faculty and students in particular to craft

new policies and make this campus a diverse and welcoming campus for

everyone.

Email from Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.

Afternoon y’all…

I am forwarding some of you information that I have received from Juan Guerra. Juan is the attorney who was Dist. Attorney and County Attorney for Willacy County where the infamous Raymondville tent camp is. As an opponent of “for profit” prisons, he is now working pro-bono for some 100 immigrants who are incarcerated in the GEO detention facility in Pecos, TX.

It was at the Pecos GEO facility where the recent riots were triggered by the death of two inmates due to the medical neglect of GEO. According to Juan, the prison is still smoldering, but corporate media is typically not covering it.

Juan is not being allowed to visit his clients, most of whom hold green cards. He is taking his case to the Federal Court this coming Thursday morning, Feb. 12. The court opens at 8am. Evidently friends and family members will join in a protest demanding habeas corpus.

This is further proof that private “for-profit” companies should not be allowed to run prisons. They cheat the taxpayer and neglect the inmate in order to attain higher stock profits. . . .

Jay

As Texans went to the polls last November, they were under the impression that their state was an exception to the job losses happening other places. But a recent notice posted by the Dallas Federal Reserve says that in the 3rd Quarter of 2008 Texas jobs declined by 0.9 percent and did not grow by 1.5 percent as officially estimated at the time.

The Dallas Fed says that its revised numbers are based upon quarterly reviews submitted by the Texas Workforce Commission. Not only did the Q3 review by TWC call for the third consecutive downward revision in employment numbers, but each time the amount of difference between preliminary and revised figures grew larger.

“The magnitude of these consecutive downward revisions escalated from -0.8 to -1.3 to -2.4 percentage points.” Which is to say, the closer the election got the further the official job reports in Texas varied from what was actually taking place on the street.

And while we’re in that downturn mood, check out the stack of global charts posted by the Dallas Fed on Jan. 30. In all the plummeting slopes there are two little hooks for your hopes: (1) in the Baltic Dry Index (which is still inching upward) and (2) in the JP Morgan All-Industry PMI.

The Rag Blog

Two research projects released last week confirm what we already knew about the aggressive arrest and deportation practices of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“ICE is out of touch with well-established norms in law enforcement, and its approach to fugitive aliens is inefficient and costly,” write the authors of Collateral Damage: An Examination of ICE’s Fugitive Operations Program (FOP).

The report by Migration Policy Institute researchers Margot Mendelson, Shayna Strom, and Michael Wishnie released on Feb. 4, 2009, examined the profiles of people rounded up by the federal enforcers. Mostly, the targets were not criminal fugitives.

As total arrests escalated from 1,900 in 2003 to 30,407 in 2007, the percentage of “criminal” and “dangerous” fell from a high of 39 percent in 2004 to only nine percent in 2007.

Meanwhile, the percentage of “ordinary status violators, without removal orders, whose cases had not been heard by an immigration judge” jumped from 18 percent in 2003 to 40 percent in 2007. Fugitive aliens with no criminal convictions made up 41 percent to 51 percent of the targets.

Released on the same day with the research report were a series of memos obtained under Freedom of Information Act by Cardozo Law School scholars under the direction of Professor Peter L. Markowitz.

The memos gradually change the operating objectives of the arrest teams:

• A January 2004 memo calls for 75 percent of the arrests to involve “criminal aliens.”
• A January 2006 memo overrules the 75 percent quota and instead sets a minimum arrest quota of 1,000 “fugitive apprehensions” per arrest team per year.
• A September 2006 memo changes the language to 1,000 “arrests” per year per team.

As a result of the shifting priorities, “the arrest of an unauthorized mother who has no criminal history or outstanding removal order counts as much as the arrest of a fugitive alien who deliberately disregarded his removal order and who poses a serious risk to national security.”

In addition, the report notes that most orders for removal may be issued in absentia.

“While some cases no doubt involve an intentional absence, in many other cases the person has never received the hearing notice or is unaware of a resulting removal order for a number of common reasons” including errors by the federal bureaucracy.

Of course, the program has been vastly successful as a spending ticket. The business of rounding up fairly harmless and in many cases hard-working, law-abiding immigrants has grown from a $12.6 million enterprise in 2003 to $218.9 million in 2007.

While the report recommends more training and stricter oversight, we say cut the budget by 90 percent. If the feds are using the money to round up people who turn out to be nine percent “criminal” and “dangerous”, then clearly they are wasting 90 percent of our money and 100 percent of thousands of peoples’ time.–gm