Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 17, 1993 TAG: 9304170396
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY LEE BANVILLE LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Medium
LATINO MAN CLAIMS BIAS AT LAW SCHOOL
A Hispanic man, who was rejected by the College of William and Mary's Marshall-Wythe Law School but accepted by other schools, has accused the college of discrimination."I was accepted at the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University and Boston College, all of which are ranked in the top 20," said Ralph Salgado, 22, who lives in Elkton.
"I was surprised when I was rejected from Marshall-Wythe, whose ranking is far lower, and decided to look into the school," Salgado said.
William and Mary officials denied Salgado's allegations.
Marshall-Wythe is among 20 unranked schools in a category directly below the nation's top 30 law schools in the latest ratings by U.S. News and World Report.
Two of the school's 562 students - or one-third of 1 percent - are Hispanic, according to Barron's Official Guide to Law Schools.
In comparison, Hispanics make up 1.5 percent of the student body at the University of Virginia's Law School and 3 percent at George Mason University and Washington and Lee University.
In a letter to Faye F. Shealy, assistant law dean, Salgado said: "From these statistics, one might conclude that there exists a persistent and deliberate policy of exclusion directed toward Latinos by the Marshall-Wythe Law School."
He also wrote to the president of the college, the acting law dean and the college's affirmative action office.
Salgado was born in the United States to a father from Mexico and a mother from Puerto Rico.
"Applications [from minorities] are taken very seriously," said Richard A. Williamson, acting dean of the law school.
Acting Associate Provost Jean Scott said: "His main goal was to spark debate within the administration over the roles of minorities on campus. It will. . . . We are concerned with the number of minorities in the university as a whole and each of its branches."
The school's former dean, Timothy J. Sullivan, was named president of the college last year. He was unavailable for comment.
The Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund in New York is considering taking Salgado's case.
"This is a common problem with a good number of law schools," said Miguel Correa, who reviews complaints for the organization.
"They [universities] use these low acceptance rates to, in our opinion, control the number of Latinos in the law schools," Correa said.
Salgado, a 1992 graduate of St. John's University in New York, has not decided which law school he will attend.