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Institutional Racism

Taking math courses, among others, is harder than it might seem... some of them have a skin-color prerequisite.

"We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." --Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

While the University creates a Multicultural Center, pushes diversity and mandates sensitivity through the "multicultural requirement," a clear statement of who is included in these efforts does not exist. A short trip to Oregon Hall and the Office of Multicultural Affairs, however, illustrates that diversity and sensitivity are aimed at the rehabilitation of whites, not their inclusion in this community of diversity.

In their winter 1995 Schedule of Classes, the University of Oregon published its policy regarding equal opportunity and nondiscrimination.

According to page 104 of the schedule: "The University of Oregon affirms and actively promotes the rights of all individuals to equal opportunity in education and employment at this institution without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, age, religion, marital status, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, or any other extraneous consideration not directly and substantively related to effective performance."

Charles Hastings, a transfer student and junior at the University, discovered while registering for winter term that this policy doesn't necessarily apply to him. Because he is white, and therefore not a student under the jurisdiction of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Hastings is ineligible to enroll in several classes offered at the University.

During the fall term of 1994, Hastings took Math 241, a business calculus class and social science course. Although he passed the class, Hastings felt that taking the class again, this time four times per week, would lead him to a greater retention of the material. He didn't read the "a" abbreviation in the schedule and attempted to enroll through Duck Call. The message Hastings received was that he needed prior authorization to take the course.

Hastings, confused, called the mathematics department and discovered that this particular course is not part of that department. Instead, he received instructions to speak with the Office of Multicultural Affairs. Hastings requested the phone number for the OMA. Rather than simply furnish him with the number, the secretary at the math department advised Hastings that the OMA prefers to have people go directly to the office and speak to someone in person.

"I felt like I was being stonewalled, like they didn't want me to go any further," Hastings recalled.

Hastings obtained the phone number for the OMA on his own, and spoke directly to Marshall Sauceda, director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

When Hastings asked Sauceda why he needed prior authorization, "he was immediately on the defensive. He told me that the policy was in place before he was. I told him I didn't care, that I just wanted to know why. [Sauceda] told me that the University is having a hard time retaining students of color, and that if [Math 241] was not offered, it would be one less opportunity," Hastings said.

Hastings quickly realized that the central issue was his race.

"I said to the director, 'What you are telling me is that because I am white, I'm being discriminated against and that I can't take the class.' He told me that I was correct," Hastings said.

According to Sauceda, however, the University is not having any difficulty keeping students of color. Rather, "the persistence rate overall has increased for all students, including students of color. This is a very positive trend for the University."

Joan Thomas, the professor for the course received instruction from the OMA that she lacked authorization to grant an interview with the student media and that all press relations are the department's responsibility.

When asked for an interview, Sauceda said that the OMA does not grant interviews to members of the student media without some concrete guarantee that the story will not twist words.

"He's a public employee at a state office and taxpayers foot the bill. He doesn't have the privilege of saying 'we don't give interviews.' Students have as much right to information as the Register-Guard or the Oregonian. Apparently the OMA thinks it is above the law," Martin Fisher, president pro tempore of the Student Senate said.

"These classes are special sections of certain kinds of classes that are offered for minority students. They are small classes and give more specialized attention to students. I think they serve a purpose. They give very close monitoring attention to students that are in the classes. They may go somewhat slower and give attention to someone whose background is weak," Michael Dyer, head of the Curriculum Committee said.

In the last three years, the OMA and its courses never came before the Curriculum Committee.

Information about the OMA eventually arrived through the President's Office of Communications and through Gerry Moseley's office. The mission statement in the Office of Multicultural Affairs Annual Report July 1, 1993-June 30, 1994 states that the OMA is "dedicated to empowering students of color to successfully complete their University of Oregon educational experience. OMA strives to meet this responsibility by providing an honest and caring atmosphere to all students."

The OMA provided only basic information to the Office of Communication about the classes offered and only two pages from its annual report, an action less reflective of honesty and caring than stonewalling.

The average enrollment in OMA classes ranged in 1993-94 from 11 to 21 students. The average GPA ranged from 2.01 to 3.32. While in 1992-93, the average enrollment was slightly less on average, ranging from eight to 20, the average GPA was higher, ranging from 2.50 to 3.36.

The classes offered include Math 111, college algebra; Math 241, calculus business and social science I; Math 242, calculus business and social science II; Writing 121, college composition I; and Writing 122, college composition II.

According to the schedule of classes, the OMA students get an added bonus, or perhaps an added burden. For the OMA-offered Math 242, students are not required to take Math 241. For the Math Department-offered Math 242, Math 241 is required. The implication for non-OMA students is that students of color have the option of not only getting math credit outside the math department, but also math credit without the hindrance of prerequisites and comparable curriculums.

According to the brochure entitled Office of Multicultural Affairs Winter 1995, the three instructors for these classes are Robin Cruz, a mathematics instructor who was hired in 1990; Candace Montoya, an English instructor who has been an OMA instructor since September of 1992; and Joan Thomas, a mathematics instructor hired in 1991.

Pre-authorization guidelines, according to the brochure, guarantee that "priority enrollment in OMA classes is given first to OMA students. These are students of color who are self-identified as: Native Americans, Asian-Pacific Americans, Chicano/Latino, or African Americans who are US citizens or permanent residents and are currently admitted to the UO."

For OMA students, there is a pre-authorization process that requires an appointment with an OMA advisor. For non-OMA students, according to the OMA brochure, "if any open spaces remain in OMA courses on the first day of class, non-OMA students may request pre-authorization to enroll."

The professor of the class, however, cannot grant pre-authorization, and "pre-authorization does not guarantee enrollment."

The OMA functions as an administrator of affirmative action as defined by Oregon Revised Statutes 182.100 in 1993. It is a means of "eliminating the effects of past and present discrimination intended or unintended."

The practical result is that only those students who designated themselves as a minority on their applications to the University may take the classes offered through the OMA. This is discrimination.

Discrimination, as defined in ORS 659.150 is "any act that unreasonably differentiates treatment, intended or unintended, or any act that is fair in form but discriminatory in operation, either of which is based on age, disability, national origin, race, marital status, religion or sex."

Although there is a process for non-OMA students to use to get into an OMA class, the effective result is that only non-white students may enroll.

This discrimination is not without penalty in the state of Oregon. "Any public institution of higher education determined by the Chancellor of the State Board of Higher Education to be in noncompliance with provisions of ORS 659.150 and this section shall be subject to the appropriate sanctions, which may include withholding of all or part of state funding, as established by rule of the State Board of Higher Education."

In order for these sanctions to take place, a student like Hastings must first file a grievance with the State Board of Higher Education, and then file a civil suit in circuit court for equitable relief, damages, or both.

Further, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states: "No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." The University of Oregon is one such program.

In 1993-94, the state appropriations to the University of Oregon totaled $49,732,661, and the gifts, grants and contracts line item, which is mainly federal money, totaled $46,195,389, according to Budget Office Director Trent Spradling. Compared to the total expenditures in 1993-94 for the University, totaling $233,825,603, these funds combined are 41 percent of the costs of the University. The penalties for discrimination could be severe.

The OMA creates a self-perpetuating community of minority students on the University campus by contributing to selected student organizations. The OMA provides advisory, financial and technical support to student organizations that "coordinate events and programs focusing on multicultural and diversity issues." During 1993-94, the OMA contributed nearly $3,000 to Black Women of Achievement, the Black Student Union, the Asian-Pacific American Student Union, MEChA, the Native American Student Union, and the Filipino Club.

Sexual harassment directed at Asian-American and Asian women was a priority in the 1993-94 school year for both the OMA and APASU. The OMA assisted the BSU's protest of the front page placement of three photographs of African-American University of Washington students at the Emerald. The BSU leaders, according to the OMA report, met with the Emerald staff to "develop editorial policies and guidelines for the appropriate coverage of multicultural and diversity issues." Editorial control is apparently part of the advocacy that the OMA is responsible for.

The truth, however, does not seem to be the responsibility of the OMA. The editorial policies and coverage guidelines actually included four demands: that the proportion of minority students on the Emerald staff "increase" to at least one quarter; that the paper allocate space to a weekly column on minority activities; that it provide sensitivity training to the staff; and, that it make a public apology.

The BSU received no concession. Then-editor Jake Berg stood by the decision to run the photos, pointed that over 25 percent of the staff were students of color, which was twice the percentage of the University, and refused to provide sensitivity training or a weekly column.

The Council of Minority Education, a University committee overseen by the OMA and composed of four faculty members, four students representing "each ethnic student union" and four members of the community disbursed grants totaling approximately $5,000 to various ethnic student organizations in 1993-94.

In addition, the OMA offers its own counseling services, its own employment and internship opportunities office, and its own computer lab. These services establish "separate but equal" facilities for students of color.

The ramifications of such de facto segregation are far reaching. As Darryll K. Jones, associate general counsel for the University of Florida wrote in 1993, the "historic and present-day racial impetus behind educational policy and the use of educational institutions for purposes unrelated to the expansion of the mind necessitate doubt as to whether knowledge will ever be achieved. Indeed, as long as race is a factor in education, the freeing of the human mind may never occur."

"[The OMA] is so bizarre, that it defies any reason," Fisher said. "At least on its face it seems so clearly illegal; it seems a curious time to allow it to happen in a time of budget cuts--then they go and make it even harder, cut classes even further, reduce access for no reason other than the color someone's skin.

"This isn't a private school, and this isn't a predominantly minority college, it isn't a college designed to serve a specific minority segment and it isn't a women's college. It's a state university that needs to be open to everybody."

Indeed, as a public institution of higher learning, exclusionary practices like that of the OMA are particularly questionable. The education provided by that office, by first specifying the cultural and racial makeup of its student, reflects an inherently racial orientation.

Jones of Florida went on to write that "The place for culturally oriented education is in private schools, and even in those institutions it would indeed be difficult to openly espouse the exclusion of a different group."

Insofar as the OMA and its proponents can argue that there is a special need or ignored focus that students of color require, all students have similar needs or interest in similar foci. There simply is no evidence that empowerment is possible through isolation in education.

"If they can achieve the same results without a minority prerequisite it's possible for them to do the same thing without breaking the law," Fisher said. "Even the ethnic student unions are technically open to anybody because they have to be. Even though they're open to everybody, the nature of the program is such that primarily people that have an interest in those issues or are minorities are going to join. The OMA can advertise their classes as being taught in a manner that is considered more inviting to non-white students and then odds are that non-white students will sign up for it and the school will achieve its goal."

A former head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under the Carter Administration said that the new separatism is "exactly what we were fighting against--it is antithetical to what the civil rights movement was all about. It sets groups apart, and it prevents (minorities) from partaking of the larger culture."

In order for the "effects of past and present discrimination" to be truly eliminated, it is necessary for the OMA and agencies like it to reevaluate their role in the education of all students on the University campus. For education to be truly beneficial a basic assumption should be that all students have similar needs and deserve similar knowledge. The OMA seems to allege that only specific students of color have those needs or rights. Students like Hastings vehemently disagree.

"I ended up taking Math 241 three times per week with a discussion section. I have a good teacher, and I'm pretty happy with the class. The UO is definitely not on my good side as a result of this," Hastings said.

Farrah Bostic was a staff writer for the Oregon Commentator at the time of the first printing of this article--Feb. 27, 1995.