ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, October 11, 1996 TAG: 9610110055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE
SOURCE: Associated Press
MEMO: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.
THE PRIVATELY FUNDED SCHOLARSHIP that was previously awarded only to black students has been extended to other minorities.
The University of Virginia has changed a privately funded scholarship program for black students to allow awards to other minorities and to poor whites.
The change in the University Achievement Awards was made in the fall of 1995. It was not made public until this week at a university affirmative action meeting.
``It wasn't my choice to open them up,'' Michael Mallory, the university's director of minority recruitment, said of the scholarships Wednesday. ``I was instructed to open them up.''
Rick Turner, dean of the university's office of African-American Affairs, said the school ``buckled under'' in changing the awards.
The program was created under state orders, but without state money, in the early 1980s to counter the effects of segregation. It offers full four-year scholarships for 50 black students.
But in October 1994, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the University of Maryland could not maintain a publicly funded scholarship that was limited to black students.
Afterward, UVa officials wondered whether the ruling would affect a privately funded scholarship.
Mallory, who is leaving UVa in December to head a national scholarship program for blacks, said the Achievement Awards did not have to be changed.
``It could have been held onto,'' he said. ``If someone wants to sue us, they can sue us.''
But Peter Low, the school's vice president and provost, said the university decided to expand the program's reach without being forced to do so.
``The criteria for that particular set of scholarships were broadened to encourage more minority groups with the goal of increasing the diversity of our student body, which is one of our general goals,'' Low said.
In addition to blacks, the scholarship is now open to whites who come from low-income families or who are the first generation in their family to go to college, to ``under-represented'' minorities and to students who have overcome serious obstacles.
Low said the university hasn't changed its commitment to enrolling black students. But he said the private source of the Achievement Awards funding didn't protect it from the court's decision.
``The fact that we are distributing private money does not change the legal obligation one way or the other,'' he said. ``Anything we do as a university is sufficient action by the state'' to fall under the ruling.
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