The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 82, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, March 3, 1995 Page: 4 of 20
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4 FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 1995 THE RICE THRESHER
OPINION
Better inner-city schools would address racial inequality
To the editor:
In response to last week's letters
endorsing affirmative action, I would
like to make a few comments. Affir-
mative action was not imposed, as
some said, to make reparation for
hundreds of years of enslavement in
the Americas.
That mistake cannot be repaired
by anyone, and pretending to be able
to do so only trivializes this great
historical tragedy. The true aim of
affirmative action is to combat the
persistently lower financial and so-
cial status of minorities as compared
to whites. This is a noble goal. How-
ever, a noble goal does not justify
bad policy.
I^et's establish something. Dis-
crimination on the basis of race is
morally wrong. It makes a judgment
about groups of people without re-
gard to the content of their charac-
ter or their abilities. It also denies
the shared bond that each of us has
to the other as a fellow member of
humanity. It has taken this country
hundreds of years, a bloody war,
three Constitutional amendments
and the lives of brave civil rights
leaders to bring us to this reality.
Affirmative action ignores these
arguments, shuns this morality, and
dismisses this history, simply be-
cause it is toward a good purpose.
We have seen the virtual elimination
of one form of discrimination only to
replace it with an institutionalized
one. Any form of discrimination runs
counter to everything the early civil
rights movement in the '50s and '60s
fought for. Affirmative action calls
into question if the time and energy
of that movement, and even the blood
of Dr. King himself, was not spent in
vain.
' [Affirmative action]
mocks those it is trying
to help by implying that
minorities could never
attain the higher level 9
Furthermore, affirmative action
makes a grave logical mistake. It
attempts to "level the playing field"
not by filling in the depressions and
raising everyone to a common plane,
but by lowering the high places. It
mocks those it is trying to help by
implying that minorities could never
attain the higher level.
An illustrative case: two of my
friends from high school who had
the same test scores were discuss-
ing scholarships. One said that he
needed to bring his ACT score up to
qualify for a certain scholarship. My
other friend replied "I don't need to
— I'm black."
The scholarship he was referring
to set lower standards for those who
were minorities. My friend could
have easily pulled his score up with
some effort, but he did not see the
need.
When the incentive to do well is
removed, a person will stop trying.
We should demand the same level of
achievement from all people. Only
by demanding this excellence will
all minorities be able to compete in
the job market and obtain a higher
socio-economic status.
Of course demanding excellence
and realizing it are two different
things. We cannot simply go out
tomorrow and say "Okay. We de-
mand that all of you be equal." The
means by which the low places in
the playing field must be raised is
education.
This does not mean that we can
pick any poor member of a minority
group and put him at Rice and say
that we have given the chance to
raise his status. All of us know that if
that person were not adequately pre-
pared, that would be unfair to him or
her. What we must do is revamp the
elementary and secondary educa-
tion systems of inner-city schools.
Anyone familiar with the plight of
inner city schools will recognize the
enormity in this task. The traditional
response to this argument is that
there is simply not enough money
61 hope someday that,
as a teacher, I too can
give inner city children
not a chance to escape "
their neighborhoods, but
the means to improve
them. 9
being spent on the problem. I might
not always disagree with this state-
ment, but no amount of money alone
can fix the problem.
It requires that each of us take an
interest in improving our inner-city
schools. It requires that those who
came from the inner city stop trying
to escape it and return to try to im-
prove it. We must be willing to vol-
unteer, to give money and (dare I
suggest it at a university fixated with
post-graduate income) aspire to be
teachers.
I came to Rice from an inner-city
school. 1 have seen how bad teach-
ers can destroy and enforce the apa-
thy and hopelessness which the in-
ner city creates.
Yet I have seen how a good
teacher can inspire and drive stu-
dents who might otherwise merely
perpetuate the collective poverty of
their race. I hope someday that, as a
teacher, I too can give inner-city chil-
dren not a chance to escape their
neighborhoods, but the means to
improve them.
If we are to ultimately remedy
the problem of low minority socio-
economic status, we must cast of the
false benevolence of affirmative ac-
tion and accept the truly altruistic
attitude of giving our time, money,
efforts and even our lives to those
minorities and inner-city children
who have suffered the poverty, in-
justice and discrimination of the past.
However, for both moral and prac-
tical reasons, we must not try to
rectify the discrimination of the past
with a new discrimination today.
Stephen Prilliman
WRC '98
Minorities have responsibility to help change unhealthy attitudes
To the editor:
Throughout the last few weeks
there has been a great deal of dis-
cussion about the appropriateness
and effectiveness of affirmative ac-
tion in our society.
As a member of a strongly
underrepresented minority — per-
sons with disabilities — I have faced
this issue throughout my life. Al-
though I understand the spirit in
which affirmative action policies at-
tempt to promote equality in aca-
demic and working environments, I
believe a policy as relatively simple
as affirmative action cannot effec-
tively negate the deep-rooted injus-
tices faced by many minority groups.
Affirmative action laws are sim-
ply that — laws. Social inequality in
the United States is mainly caused
by unhealthy attitudes, not poor laws.
Although laws govern our behavior
to a certain extent, they do not gov-
ern our feelings. The key to ending
discrimination in this world is to
change those attitudes which make
certain groups of people feel supe-
rior or inferior to others. I^aws can-
not change attitudes.
The effectiveness of affirmative
action policies stems from the atti-
tudes that are changed as a result of
compliance with the law.
Employers may hire people, mi-
norities, whom they may never have
hired without the guidance of affir-
mative action. Once employers hire
a minority, they may quickly realize
that their prejudices were completely
inaccurate. In the future, therefore,
those employers may freely hire mi-
norities — not to comply with any
laws, but because they know that
minorities are no less qualified for a
job than their "white male" counter-
parts.
This is admittedly an idealistic
view of affirmative action; it assumes
that the employer is open to changes
in attitudes, and it also assumes that
the hired person will impress the
employer enough to change his or
her prejudices. This gives a great
deal of responsibility to all people.
People must be open to change.
People must also be inspirations of
change.
6 A challenging yet
necessary part of
affirmative action is the
responsibility of
minorities to demand
equality. ... '
Hanszen Qotteae presents
RICHARD
"RACEHORSE"
HAYNES
Richard Haynes is recognized as one of the top criminal
lawyers in the nation. His many achievements in the
courtroom include the trials of T. Cullen Davis, purported
to be the wealthiest man ever tried for murder. Mr. Haynes
also represented Vicki Daniel, accused of killing her
husband, Texas Speaker of the House, Price Daniel Jr.
Mr. Haynes is listed as one of the 10 best trial lawyers
in America in a new book, The Trial Lawyers.
fT)ucsdav. c^prch 14, 1995
7:30 (P.SX.
> Hem seen Q>ffege (Commons
0Tfte y\aron gcrif (Jecture genes
Many who debate over the issue
of affirmative action recognize the
openness required by "majority"
groups in making affirmative action
effective. A challenging yet neces-
sary part of affirmative action is the
responsibility of minorities to de-
mand equality, to show others that
everyone has unique gifts and in-
alienable rights. In an ideal society
this would definitely not be neces-
sary, but as we work to promote
justice we must sometimes take on
"extra" responsibilities. Laws can-
not change attitudes. People can.
When I arrived at Rice nearly
four years ago, I met some people
who told me that the only reason I
got into Rice was because I had a
physical disability, and that by ad-
mitting me Rice would "look good"
in light of the Americans with Dis-
abilities Act, a law that requires jobs
and educational opportunities to be
open to all people regardless of physi-
cal differences. If I leave Rice in May
without changing some attitudes on
campus about people with disabili-
ties, some incoming freshman next
year who has a disability will be
treated just as I was during my first
semester. I certainly can only hope
to have changed a few attitudes on
campus.
If those of us who are members
of minority groups do not stand up,
do not speak out, nothing will
change. The laws may change, but
some of ourcolleagues will then see
us as "that poorly qualified person
who got hired by affirmative action."
I am not at all saying that this is just,
but it sadly is reality.
I am thoroughly impressed with
the involvement of minority groups
in campus life and I am confident
that people's unhealthy attitudes
about minorities are changing
quickly.
We must remember to take seri-
ously our social responsibility as
minorities. We must continue to
work to change attitudes.
' If those of us who are
members of minority
groups do not stand up,
do not speak out,
nothing will change. 9
Although affirmative action is an
adequate policy for increasing the
hiring/admission of minorities, laws
will not make injustices vanish. By
changing attitudes through leader-
ship and Example, all minorities can
help bring about the day when affir-
mative action is no longer neede^
Kathleen Friel
WRC'95
Honor
FROM PAGE 2
age and three years of work experi-
ence.
To the readers, I submit that these
students are not bored; they are not
looking for trouble.
It would be much easier to look
the other way, but they did not. I
postulate that each of the accusers
thought long and hard about the
event and concluded that without
the commitment of the student body,
the honor code does not work.
And so they came forward one by
one, reporting what they had seen
and what they had not.
When the last question was an-
swered and the dust had settled, the
council members concluded that
there was no misconduct.
Somehow each of my honorable
classmates was mistaken; this, in
fact, was not an incident of cheating
... it was merely an error in judg-
ment. Somehow, perhaps an act of
divine intervention gave the mem-
bers of the Honor Council the power
to "see" the truth, rather than to
simply listen to the truth.
I sense that I am drifting down a
course which both questions the
integrity of the current Honor Coun-
cil and suggests that the acquitted is
actually guilty.
So let us step back and absorb
the real message of this piece.
The honor code in its current
form, for major infractions such as
cheating on an examination, is not
enforceable.
"■>
6 Codes can only
work if they are
enforceable. ...
It is not sufficient for several
members of a class to witness the
infraction and to report it immedi-
ately; it is not simply a student's
obligation to report misconduct,
because a student's word is not suf-
ficient.
Written into our little blue book
should be a section titled "Ways to
Catch Cheaters."
It would read, "If you see a sljtt^
dent cheating during an exam, you
must forget about your performance
or disrupting those around you —
you must rip the notes out of the
hands of the cheater and run from
the roomcRemember that you must
first tap both of your neighbors and
tell them what you are going to do,
so that they will witness the entire
event."
Without such explicit guidelines
for upholding the honor code, the
cheater will always say, "Those were
my math notes, not my history notes.
... 'I was just getting ready for my
next exam."The accuser will always
say, "I cannot say with certainty that
those were history notes and not
math equations." And the accused
will always become the acquitted.
As much as I enjoy taking an
exam at home or in my own corner
of the library, I have seen the system
break down. The pitch that I received
during orientation that "the honor
code does not work without the com-
mitment of the student" is far too
simplistic. Codes can only work if
they are enforceable, and this one,
as demonstrated by our esteemed
Honor Council, is not.
Wes Kern
Jones School of Administration
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Hale, David. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 82, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, March 3, 1995, newspaper, March 3, 1995; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246506/m1/4/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.