The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 83, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, March 29, 1996 Page: 2 of 24
twenty four pages : ill. ; page 19 x 15 in.View a full description of this newspaper.
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Passive acceptance of court decision
contradicts Rice tradition.
Something is rotten in Denmark.
Unfortunately, we can't figure out if its the Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals decision on affirmative action or the current posture of this
university in response to said decision.
All the PR statements and the two recent Rice community meetings
seemed to paint this university in a very good light, but a closer
examination of the issue shows that the paint is peeling and the light is
very dim.
After a recent conversation with a Houston Chronicle news reporter
who had been interviewing Houston-area lawyers and law professors,
(lie Thresher learned that the lawyers were shocked by Rice's answer to
the court decision The lawyers contended that Rice was not really
silfjject to Ihecourt decision and that there were several loopholes to the
decision. (For the time-being, we'll keep the names of the lawyers under
wraps and just call them "a group of highly-qualified lawyers" — sounds
familiar, doesn't it?)
This revelation led to a closer examination of the decision and the way
il was written. Sure enough, there seem to be some large loopholes.
Now, we're no law experts, so we won't go into a long legal analysis, but
several passages stand out.
One passage reads, "We also agree with Mr. Justice POWELL that a
plan like the "Harvard" plan ... is constitutional under our approach, at
least so long as the use of race to achieve an integrated student body is
necessitated by the lingering effects of past discrimination." (emphasis
added). Now, this is actually a statement from the Bakke trial, but the
writers of the opinion agree with this statement.
As always, it can be argued whether there are lingering effects, but
may we remind people of the history of this university— a history which
includes an active KKK chapter, a rt'-year stalling job bv.the administra-
tion to admit blacks before they took it to court (where they attached
another change to the charter for tuition — sneaky), the poor treatment
of Charlie Freeman in 19<i8 and yearly debates in the Thresher about
affirmative action and race relations? Sounds like discrimination still
exists in some way, shape or form.
There are many more loophole^-which would make a very large
paper, but there are other problems that need to be addressed here. This
university, as seen during that 17 year stall, has been behind the times
hi race relations. President Malcolm (iillis has changed this to some
extent (e.g. making Ml.lv day a stall holiday last week), but we are slill
behind the times.
Why are we not taking an active national role in this issue? The
Thresher acknowledges that there is merit to challenging a decision
within the system, but major change can only happen with strong
actions outside of the system. We should be going public. Rice has every
right to call a Rice community meeting, but by doing so. they exiled the
Houston Chronicle. This-exiled the only real' source to affect change
while forcing the media sources to
ninmn^ scramble for sound biles about race
^11III/1IQ~ relations. We must abuse the media.
q We must make some sort of stand and
2. fight for what we feel is right". To this
p. point, Rice has supported affirmative
^ ac tion and hinted at still supporting it
Thus, we have made our position
known. Let's fight. II the administration is so concerned about increas-
ing numbers ot minority students, do they not realize that a strong
Letters to the Editor
0
national stand on the issue would accomplish much morsUhan having
a warm, fuzzy community on Owl Day? But the administrators are not
tin-only ones at fault. Students need to fight. Demonstrate. Voice your
opinions loud and often, letters are great, but actions speak much
louder. What happened to that fervor students used to have? Most of the
Rice community can'Feven remember the 1 !)87 demonstration march" of
17T> students in support of a biology teacher who was denied tenure. It's
time lo relive an old Rice tradition — actually earing about an issue.
Letter Policy
TO SUBMIT Letters may be sent in by ...
e-mail: lingjj(a)ou>lnet.rice edit
campus mail: Letter to the Fditor, c/o The Rice Thresher
V S. Mail: Letter to the Editor, The Rice Thresher,
til 00 Main St., MS-524, Houston. TX 77005-1W2
in person: Thresher Office. Second Floor. Student Center
DEADLINE — Deadline for all letters is 5 p.m. on Monday Letters
received after the deadline are generally not considered for publi-
cation until the following week.
RULES —
1 All letters must include your name, college, year of
graduation and phone number.
2 Short letters (200-500 words is a good guideline) have a better
chance of being published than long ones.
:i Letters received via campus or U.S. mail must be signed, I* you
are not subrfiftting via e-mail, we strongly recommend that >•<><&
submit letters on a Macintosh or IBM formatted disk.
1 We reserve the rigty to edit lor length, spelling, grammar and
can now prove
To the editor:
1 sometimes wonder if I would be
a student at Rice today were it not for
the fact that 1 am Mexican-Ameri-
can. 4
I like to think 1 would be, but now
I'm not so sure. This doubt stems
from what I heard at Monday night's
Student Association meeting where
Malcolm (iillis addressed a recent
ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court
I hat bars universities from consider-
ing race when deciding whether to
admit a particular student.
Chandler Davidson, professor of
sociology and chairman of the Ad
missions Committee, explained that
the ruling was handed down while
the committee was still making ad-
missions decisions for the class of
2000.
Because of the ruling, the com-
mittee decided to reconsider the al-
ready-accepted students for whom
race had been a factor in allowing
admission.
Their applications were reconsid-
ered, this time without any consid-
eration to race.
After this review, some students
who had initially been put in the
"accepted pile" were moved to the
"rejected pile."
Am 1 the only one who finds this
upsetting?
Once forced to ignore race, these
students were suddenly not good
enough for Rice.
Then why were they admitted in
the first place?
Doesn't it bother anyone else to
see that these students weren't good
enough for Rice until we noticed
their dark skin or Spanish surname?
Does no one else think it's wrong
that some non-minority student had
been rejected because some other
student's minority status gave him
the edge?
Minority students should wel-
come this ruling. It is a chance to
show that we can continue to get
into schools like Rice, even if admis-
sion committees ignore race.
It would remove all doubt as to
why we were accepted to Rice. 1,
unlike the class of 2000, don't have
t he benefit of knowing I'm here solely
because I'm qualified.
Instead, I'm left wondering if race
was the deciding factor in my accep-
tance.
Would I have been good enough
if my name had been Alexander
Smith instead of Alejandro Gonzalez?
If this decision had come down
when I was applying to Rice, would.1
have been moved from the "accepted
pile" to the "rejected pile?"
Thanks to affirmative action, I'll
never know.
In closing, I say to the Admis-
sions Council and every one else
My race/national origin is not an
issue for me. It shopldn't be for you.
It is time to become colorblind and
realize that affirmative action has
outlived its usefulness.
You're not doing me any favors
by doing me favors.
To my fellow student s of color, I
say that perhaps our interests would
be better served if we all devoted
less energy to saving affirmative ac
tion and whining about "the man"
and instead focused more time on
doing real work and tackling useful
issues.
You're black. You're Hispanic.
That's great. Now move on.
Alejandro Gonzalez
Baker '97
Lecture presents nano
over
as
To the editor:
Having attended Professor Rich-
ard Smalley's Seientae lecture, we
find ourselveseompelled to respond
in some public forum.
First, we welcome Smalley's in-
terest in the issues of overpopula-
tion and its environmental conse-
quences, including the build-up of
greenhouse gases, ozone depletion
amOratural resource depletion.
By his own admission, his aware-
ness of these problems is relatively
recent, and it is heartening that so
eminent a scientist is publicly mak-
ing such a cogent case for the need
to direct our efforts toward resolv-
ing these pressing problems.
Many in our society have long
turned a blind eye to such problems,
and belated recognition of them by
the general public is long overdue.
But we must differ with* his overly
simplistic view that technology, spe-
cifically nanotechnology. can offer
simple solutions to these complex
problems if only we will generously
fund the needed research.
In his talk, Smalley focused on
meeting projected needs for energy
through new and as yet undevel-
oped technologies.
In ecological terms, he was sug
..gosling4hat simply finding a clean,
plentiful, alternative source of en
ergy (e.g., nano-solar) would raise
the carrying capacity of the Earth to
double its current population.
While he convinced us that it may
be possible to feed the electrical
power grid with solar energy via
"clean," "green," "dry" nanotech-
nology, we predict that the ecologi-
cal and economic problems which
must accompany another doubling
in human population will not be so
i! actable.
To accept his view is to assume
that we will be able to drive cars
and have computers and air condi-
tioning, but will everyone be able to
cat?
How can nanotechnology restore
overharvested fish populations or
depleted stratospheric ozone?
What of rising sea levels or dras-
tic changes in climate result ing from
our prior use of fossil fuels? What
will be the consequences of the ac-
celerating loss of biodiversity we are
now experiencing?
It is naive fo believe that simply
inventing new technology will solve
our environmental problems.
Ecological research has taught
us that even simple ecosystems ex- '
Libit chaotic or unpredictable.be*
liav'ior.
W hile we as a society-know much
about our environment, we do not
yet understand as much as we must
to predict'the conseqtiences of our
actions. Such is evident in our ex-
ploitation of oil, nuclear power, DDT
and CFCs.
When asked by Professor
Stephen Klineberg about the alter-
native of merely conserving energy
by changing human behavior,
Smalley pooh-poohed the notion,
suggesting th at human behavior has
not changed and will not change.
Such a view is untenable in light
of the massive, changes in human
behavior that have occurred in this
century alone. It seems likely that a
mix of technological, ecological and
social solutions will be required.
While we applaud him for his
public airing of the prospects for
human overpopulation, we respect-
fully suggest that focusing our effort
and money exclusively on dry
nanotechnolgy will leave us danger-
ously open to unanticipated prob-
lems on social, economic and eco
logftal fronts.
Rosine W. Hall
Postdoctoral Research
Associate
Mark R. Fulton
Huxley Fellow
IU*|iartim'nt of Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology
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Klein, Charles & Rao, Vivek. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 83, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, March 29, 1996, newspaper, March 29, 1996; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246537/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.