The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, January 25, 1991 Page: 2 of 16
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2 FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 1991 THE RICE THRESHER
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Minority scholarships ^thisb huwkher woh
discriminate by color
Discrimination based on ethnicity is racism. And eliminating
scholarships reserved for students because of their ethnic background
is the next step toward eliminating racism at Rice and other univer-
sities.
The Department of Education'srecentannouncementthatfederally-
funded universities are prohibited from awarding scholarships based
on racial status was long overdue. Almost every university in the
country receives federal monies in the form of grants, loans, and
work-study programs, and Rice is no exception. Thus, if this an-
nouncement becomes policy, minority scholarships will be a thing of
the past for Rice. Good riddance.
Scholarships reserved for minorities, because they treat them
differently than whites, perpetuate the false idea that minorities are,
in general, inferior academically. Like other "affirmative action pro-
grams," they cause society to wonder if the recipients are truly
deserving. Under such programs, which cover a wide range in
America today, the respect that comes to whites more or less auto-
matically when they receive a job, an acceptance to a university such
as Rice, or a scholarship, does not come to blacks and Hispanics,
thereby increasing their inferiority complex.
The stigma associated with minority scholarships is not strongly
felt here at Rice where 80% of the student body is on one form of
financial aid or another. Nonetheless, this is no excuse for Wiliam
Marsh Rice University to continue to judge people on skin color, as
did its founder.
Of course, Mr. Rice tried to keep blacks down. Many other whites
did their damndest to instill an attitude of inferiority in blacks through
slavery, and in blacks and Hispanics through the discriminatory laws
and racist attitudes that were widespread in this country as little as
thirty years ago.
Minority scholarships are an important signal that universities
care about minorities and want to make some amends for past
injustices, even though they may not have been directly felt by
scholarship recipients. But like anything restricted by ethnic origins
(which also includes Irish-Americans or Chinese-Americans), minority
scholarships are both morally and legally wrong.
They also help the wrong people. Forty percent of blacks in
America are upper- or middle-class. They have gone to good schools,
lived in safe neighborhoods, and been raised in houses that valued
education. These advantages, which many whites take for granted,
have allowed them to begin the race for success at the starting line.
By contrast, many poor children who lack one or more of those
things start that race way behind the line. It's a sad fact that a
disproportionately high percentage of blacks and Hispanics do begin
their lives lacking those advantages.
Those people are who we should be trying to help. And if minority
scholarships were eliminated, they wouldn't be hurt; upper- and
middle-class blacks and Hispanics would. Forcing those who can
shoulder more of the burden of their own education would enable
more poor — whites, Asians, blacks and Hispanics — to afford
college.
Kurt Moeller, Jay Yates
Editors-in-Chief
Harlan Howe
Managing Editor
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© COPYRIGHT 1991
The Rice Thresher, the official student newspaper at Rice University
since 1916, is published each Friday during the school year, except
during examination periods and holidays, by the students of Rice
University. Editorial and business offices are located on the second
floor of the Ley Student Center, P.O. Box 1892, Houston, Texas,
77251. Advertising information available upon request. Mail subscrip-
tion rate per semester: $15.00 domestic, $30 international via first
class mail. Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the
Thresher Editors. All other pieces represent the opinion of the author.
Obviously.
I
President's Lecture Series biased
by Kurt Moeller
David Halberstam's speech
Wednesday night was remarkably
balanced ideologically, an oddity for
one in the President's Lecture Series.
But this balance does nothing to re-
move the liberal bias that has been
obvious in the choice of speakers for
the series over the past four years.
Halberstam's address follows ones
earlier this year by novelist/diplomat
Carlos Fuentes and scientist/educa-
tor John Firor. Both advocated posi-
tions which cause American liberals
to nod agreeably and conservatives
to cluck their tongues.
Fuentes spoke about the need for
Latin America to break away fromthe
twin centralizing traditions of the
French bureaucracy and the Catho-
lic Church. I expected him to then
endorse the radical individualism and
decentralization of capitalism. But he
didn't, instead dwelling on the growth
of grass-roots, neighborhood com-
munities, which he called "the great
contemporary event in Latin
America." Political science professor
Robert Dix, a Latin American spe-
cialist and a liberal (he opposed the
1989 invasion of Panama), said later,
"If you simply looked at it analytically,
[the most important event] is the great
move toward privatization and free
trade."
Firor warned about the danger of
global warming, stating the recent
increase in world temperature was
significant However, in a New York
Times article eight months earlier, a
scientist at the Marshall Space Flight
Center in Alabama said, "We found
the earth's atmosphere goes through
fairly large year-to-year changes in
temperature, and over that ten-year
period (1979-88), we saw no long-
term wanning or cooling trend."
Firor also said the computer mod-
els to measure global changes in
temperature are accurate. Eleven
months earlier, in a New York Times
article, a pair of scientists studying
the problem said current forecasts of
global warming "are so inaccurate
and fraught with uncertainty as to be
useless to policymakers." Added an-
other, who the Times said had been
working on global warming since
1972, the computer models "are se-
riously exaggerating the warming by
at leasffivo to threefold.".
On tne question of global warm-
ing, many scientists disagree with
Firor, but many agree. The issue is
not his right to express his opinion,
but the stifling of those views which
contradict the ones typically held by
today's liberals.
When was the last time someone
who could be considered a "conser-
vative" spoke in the President's Lec-
ture Series?
According to biology professor
Ron Sass, in charge of securing
speakers for the lecture series this
year, there was an opportunity this
year to obtain a conservative - Ro-
nald Reagan. But Sass told me he
would have had to balance the former
president with someone who would
have opposing viewpoints, because
of "the concern that Rice might be
viewed as endorsing a political view
or party."
Never mind that Reagan would
have provided much needed balance
to the list of speakers. Or that innu-
merable students would love to hear
a former president speak. The idea
of "balance" had to be applied, even
When was the last time
a"conservative"
spoke?
though it never was when liberals
were asked to participate in the lec-
ture series.
We heard Fuentes; why not
former Chilean Finance Minister
Hern&n Buchi, whose success in
implementing a free-market, free-
trade economy spurred the hemi-
spheric drive Due mentioned? We
heard former Congresswoman
Shirley Chisholm in 1988; why not
conservative intellectual Thomas
Sowell, who happens to be black and
has blasted affirmative action since
1970?
In 1988 we also heard Susan
Sontag. Sontag, who once embraced
the Cuban Revolution and North
Vietnam, has reversed her opinions
on those subjects, but she still dis-
dains "American culture. "Look, Eu-
ropean culture is just a better cul-
ture," she told the authors of De-
structive Generation. But non-exis-
tent has been John Updike, who is
noted for his love for America (and is
a liberal).
Lecturers are chosen so minori-
ties and women are represented, but
those picked hold the same sort of
positions as the white male speakers.
Fuentes spent the first 12 years of
his life in the United States as the son
of a diplomat. Alvin Poussaint, who
spoke three years ago, was then as-
sociate dean for student affairs at
Harvard Medical School. Jane
Goodall, who speaks in March, is a
world famous anthropologist in Af-
rica, as was Richard Leakey, who
lectured in 1989.
But it's not enough that lecturers
conform to a mold. In spring 1989, a
man was physically removed by
campus police from a presidential
lecture which featured an American
and a Soviet astronaut He was told
he would be arrested on charges of
trespassing if he set foot on the Rice
campus again. His crime: in prefacing
his question he claimed the Soviets
had war-mongering intentions in
their space program.
The message was reinforced:
nothing that shakes the typical liberal
academic's worldview will be toler-
ated. I am not surprised, therefore,
that I have seen no presidential lec-
turers drawn from the ranks of dis-
sidents who have been fighting for
freedom across the globe in Eastern
Europe, South Africa, China, or
elsewhere.
One speaker like Chai Ling, a
student leader in the Tiananmen
Square pro-democracy movement,
would bring more true diversity to
the President's Lecture Series than
100 Shirley Chisholms. [Currently
residing in the U.S., Ling and her
husband are among the 21 people
from the movement "most wanted"
by the brutal Chinese government.]
Polish journalist and writer Adam
Michnik didn't escape imprisonment
But he kept fighting for freedom, and
now the eloquent dissident is editor-
in-chief of one of the country's most
influential newspapers.
They fit the criteria for a lecturer,
as told to me by Baker senior Jeff
Ayer, who was on the committee
which chose speakers for last year.
They would generate intellectual in-
terest, provide insightful information,
and are known in the academic
community.
But they would say things with
which most academics would dis-
agree. President Rupp (who approves
all the speakers), Sass, and everyone
else on this year's committee, owe it
to Rice to line up some speakers with
truly divergent opinions and back-
grounds, instead of homogeneous
ones that just rehash the typical
academic's viewpoint
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Moeller, Kurt & Yates, Jay. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 78, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, January 25, 1991, newspaper, January 25, 1991; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245773/m1/2/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.