THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 7, 1994 TAG: 9411070058
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 182 lines
They're either a lifeline or a politically correct frill, a counterbalance to help balance the scales of justice or a dead weight that skews the system the other way.
They are college scholarships restricted to minorities, and they have become the hot topic in the long-simmering debate on affirmative action in the country.
Last week, a panel of three federal judges in Richmond ruled that the University of Maryland's minorities-only scholarship program was unconstitutional. The university is appealing the ruling, but if it is reaffirmed, colleges in Virginia and elsewhere in the country fear they may have to drop the programs, which many use as a tool to integrate campuses.
Talks with students reveal a sharp - though not surprising - racial divide on the question; one that reflects the chasm across the country.
Twenty blacks and 20 whites were interviewed last week at Old Dominion and Christopher Newport universities, which together offer nearly 200 ``race-based scholarships.'' Of the black students, all believed there was a need for the scholarships. Of the whites, only a quarter agreed; the overwhelming majority said they should be eliminated.
``If it's coming from state money, it ought to be offered to everyone,'' said Maria Perry, a junior accounting major at ODU. ``If the KKK had scholarships only for WASPs and Anglo-Saxons, the NAACP would have a fit.''
Ted Johnson, a junior civil engineering major, agreed: ``I could see where black students need help, but I don't think it should be based on color or where they're from; people should get scholarships based on their need.''
But Arlene Rodriguez, a freshman law major at Newport, said: ``Minorities have a harder time getting into college for financial reasons. If we're going to get ahead, we do need some help.'' Dropping the programs ``would do a lot of injustice to people who could go to college and offer something to society when they get a degree.''
Gwennatta Majette is one of those people. The senior public relations major from Portsmouth is getting ODU's $1,000-a-year Alfred B. Rollins Jr. Scholarship, offered only to minorities.
``We don't live in a perfect world, so we need these scholarships,'' she said. ``Everybody has to look outside their own little world sometimes. You may believe that racism no longer exists, but sometimes it does. These scholarships help minorities and other groups get ahead and get an education like everyone else.''
MINORITY-ONLY SCHOLARSHIPS comprise about 4 percent of all scholarship money given to U.S. undergraduates, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office, and only 7 percent of U.S. minority students receive them.
There are no statistics on the number of minority scholarships in Virginia, but the University of Virginia reports having about 185 students on such scholarships, Christopher Newport 104 and ODU 80. Historically black Norfolk State University, on the other hand, offers scholarships to 173 white students.
Most of the minority scholarships that come from state funds, are not based on need, but are restricted to Virginia students. The grants range from $1,000 a year to full tuition, room and board.
The scholarships first came under scrutiny during President Bush's administration. In 1991, his administration proposed banning most of the scholarships, but backed off following a storm of protest from colleges and black organizations.
Under President Clinton, the U.S. Education Department has stood firmly behind the scholarships.
Meanwhile, in Maryland, a Hispanic-American student, Daniel Podberesky, was waging his own battle.
Podberesky who had a 4.0 grade-point average in high school and a 1340 SAT score out of a possible 1600, was accepted to the University of Maryland at College Park in 1989. But he was rejected for the school's Benjamin Banneker scholarship program because he wasn't black. So he sued.
After a series of contradictory rulings from lower courts, a three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the program was not justified, despite Maryland's history of segregation. The justices ruled that the scholarship program must be disbanded. Maryland's university President William E. Kirwan said last week that the school will appeal to the full 4th Circuit Court.
Because Virginia is among the states in that circuit, the case has raised immediate concern among local college officials. Podberesky's lawyer, Richard Samp, of the Washington Legal Foundation last week wroteto the state Attorney General's Office in Richmond, asking it to stop similar scholarships because the ruling was ``binding in Virginia.''
Mark Miner, a spokesman for the office, said it is reviewing the case. College leaders have said they don't plan any changes unless the full court turns down the university's appeal.
But even if that happens, some observers say, a case brought against a Virginia university could go the other way.
Both Maryland and Virginia were among more than a dozen states that had to negotiate agreements with the U.S. Justice Department in the 1970s to better integrate their colleges. Virginia was placed in a different grouping than Maryland - because Maryland never had laws specifically banning blacks from white colleges - so the courts might give Virginia more leeway in affirmative-action measures, said U.Va. President John T. Casteen III, a former state secretary of education.
Additionally, the Maryland scholarship, unlike most Virginia programs, admits out-of-state students. The three-judge panel took that as further evidence that the Banneker program was not ``narrowly tailored'' - a requirement for affirmative-action programs.
Benjamin Berry, a history professor at Virginia Wesleyan College, said the ruling reflects a backlash against blacks. ``I think that in our society in the last 12 years, racism has become acceptable again,'' he said. ``This is dangerous; it's closing the door to the kind of things we tried to get, back in the civil rights movement.''
But John Jeffries, a U.Va. law professor, said the ruling was consistent with others on affirmative action and wouldn't necessarily endanger many programs: ``Affirmative action is a yes-but situation. Yes, you can do it, but you can't do it without limits. It has to be a well-thought-out program. . . . I don't see any radical change.''
DEPENDING ON WHOM YOU TALK TO, the Maryland program, which offers a full scholarshipto 35 students a year, embodies the great promise or the glaring pitfalls of minorities-only scholarships.
Kirwan, president of the University of Maryland , sees it as a key ingredient to bringing diversity on campus. ``It can attract high-ability African-American students to the university,'' he said. ``They can come here and be successful, and they will work as role models to help us attract other African-American students.''
The student body now is 13 percent black, he said, and Maryland was ranked tops among all predominantly white schools in the number of blacks it graduates by the journal ``Black Issues in Higher Education.''
But Samp, the chief counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation, which seeks to limit the power of government, sees it as a charade that doesn't help the students who most need help. ``These programs are not designed to help disadvantaged people at all,'' he said. ``They are designed to improve the image of universities that have suffered from low enrollment of minorities, and they'd like to get those figures higher.
``Programs like the Banneker and the University of Virginia's (minority scholarships) are part of a bidding war across the country. They attract students who, not surprisingly, are not coming from the inner cities or Richmond, Norfolk or Baltimore.''
Scholarship recipients, though, say they are hardly wealthy: Majette, the Old Dominion student, is a 23-year-old graduate of I.C. Norcom High School in Portsmouth. She was raised by a single mother who is a dietary aide at a convalescent home. Majette works 20 hours a week as an ODU office assistant while taking a full course load.
Nathaniel Trower, a 30-year-old Christopher Newport junior majoring in business, is getting a $1,000-a-year Virginia Transfer Grant for minorities who have transferred from a community or other four-year college in the state. Trower, a former store manager for United Parcel Service, said: ``I need this money; if I didn't get it, I wouldn't be here.''
Other black students say there are factors other than need that hamper blacks, entitling them to special consideration for financial aid. ``It's easier for white students,'' said Kim McNair, an ODU sophomore. ``A lot of times white students have more connections than black students. If they can't get money for college, their father can make a phone call.''
Montez Kaufman, a senior in applied physics at Newport, said black students also suffer from poor counseling in school: ``They don't put in for it (college), because a lot of times they don't know about it and no one will tell them.'' Trower thinks that's what happened to one of his cousins: He was among the best students in his high school in math, but he wasn't pushed toward college, so he's working in a shipyard now.
The issue sometimes reveals deep wounds of resentment among both races.The resentment is aimed at racism that's gone on too long - toward what's perceived as a new form of racism that's equally unjust.
``When we weren't getting anything, there were no complaints,'' said Fruqan Mouzon, a senior accounting major at ODU. ``Why is it all of a sudden unfair? I think it's fair for them to suffer because our parents suffered.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by GARY C. KNAPP
``We don't live in a perfect world, so we need these
scholarships,''
says Gwennatta Majette, who gets a minorities-only scholarship at
ODU..
KEYWORDS: MINORITY SCHOLARSHIPS
by CNB