Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (July 6, 1978)
In recruitment of minorities Eugene’s past plagues the U By TOM WOLFE Of the Emerald University Pres. William Boyd is right when he says the Bakke re verse discrimination decision isn’t much of a threat to University af firmative action programs. Largely, that’s because the University philosophy is to assist ethnic minority students who have already overcome the odds and enrolled, rather than accom modating their enrollment in the first place. The University’s general ad missions policy merely examines grade point average and test scores and has no sensitivity to analysis race or cultural background. Though the University has had at least a mild affirmative action commitment for several years, it’s had a hard time agreeing on how to institutionalize that commitment amid criticism from all sides until last year’s formation of a Council for Minority Education. Students, faculty and minority community representatives sit on the council and decide when and how to sponsor minority projects. While it’s too early to measure the success of the council, the support it has received from minority students and com munities indicates a sensitivity lacking in previous programs. The University law school takes a different approach. The admissions people there look at LSAT scores and under graduate grade point average as the main criteria for admission and then include a subjective rating considering the background, race and sex of the applicant. Marilyn Bradetich, law school admissions officer, says the process probably constitutes an affirmative program I 111 since the subjective rating ex amines the strengths and poten tial of ethnic minority students as demonstrated in their own back grounds. Both the law school admissions criteria and the Council for Minor ity Education seem to have favor able effects, since the University enrolls about a four percent grea ter proportion of ethnic minorities than is found in the Oregon popu lation. But the enrollment figure is below the national percentage of ethnic minorities in the general population. That disparity is the ef fect of past discrimination in the Eugene area, an injustice proba bly no affirmative action program now acceptable to the Supreme Court could overturn. In 1978 Eugene is fond of billing itself as a model of progress—the epitome of small-town America male good. In part, that reputation glosses over Eugene's sordid his tory of racial discrimination, espe Food Service TODAY EMU Food Service •• • BEER GARDEN Open: 3-6 pm Ml 12 oz. glass 350 pitcher $1.50/hotdogs 250 free popcorn I \ % Free Entertainment Sow some wild oats... Put a Personal in the ODE. ■■•••••••••••••••aa«aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaBaBaBBBaaaBaBBaBBaaaBBaaBBBaaaaaaaBa,*aBBBai UJ_I 1_HI dally against blacks. Legal subordination of blacks in the United States may have begun in the Deep South, but when those southerners moved to Oregon they brought with them at titudes and practices that kept blacks out of Lane County until after World War II. Even today only a few hundred black families make their home in Eugene, a dty of 100,000 people. Sundown laws in Eugene, Roseburg, Cottage Grove, Al bany, Corvallis, Salem, Brownsville and Medford prohi bited blacks from entering any of those communities during the 1800s. Sundown laws were later struck down by the Supreme Court—but the attitudes behind them ruled just as effectively for several more decades. As arguments arose over whether Oregon should enter the union as a slave or free state, Joseph Lane, a local civic leader, opposed any status, saying blacks needed no protection as long as they were prohibited from Oregon. Lane later became the state s first governor. Seven votes in the Legislature kept Oregon from becoming a slave state, but it was almost another 100 years before a black family braved settling in Joseph Lane County. The keep-’em-out attitude was especially strong during the 1920s when Eugene’s Ku Klux Klan membership was reported at be tween 400 and 450 members, in cluding several University faculty and students. The Klan usually met at Skinner’s Butte Park and occa sionally paraded through the city clad in white robes and hoods. There were still no blacks living in or near the city, and Eugene’s Klan stuck to peaceful demonstra tions. Other Klans in the state partici pated in at least two hanging. Oregon Gov. Ben Olcott con demned that practice and Klan membership eroded away. Then, in 1940, Leo and Bertha Washington became the first black family to live in Eugene. Since the Washingtons and the several families joining them in the next several years weren’t permit ted in public places, they lived in tent camps without plumbing or electricity near the Ferry Street Bridge and later, near Glenwood. Several years later, the Eugene Human Rights Commission inves tigated discrimination in Eugene and found “a proportionately large number of racial discrimination cases in Eugene.” In its Report to the Community in 1966 the commission wrote that "Deep, subtle, sometimes sub conscious, fears and attitudes no doubt form the substance of our problem in Eugene...As long as this persists, ail of our good inten tions, our surveys, our programs, our action groups, will not be enough to diminish the impression communicated to the Negro that he is a second-class citizen.” ft is against this backdrop that Oregon higher education now in vites ethnic minority students into its fold. It is against a similar back drop that the Supreme Court nar rowly interprets how serious a University can be about making a place for cultural diversity among its ivory towers. “It takes a lot of encourage ment, says Chris Munoz, a former recruiter for the University. “A lot of the work is just convincing high school counselors, principals and the students themselves that they have a place in higher education.” Editor’s note: Much of the in formation used in this article came from Lewis Peters’ master’s thesis submitted to the urban planning department in 1973: Critical Perspective of Minorities in Lane County, Oregon, Their Hardships and Difficulties Towards Self De termination. Major Charles Winchester’ Cap your holiday week by seeing the funniest show in town LUV’ . v O - an adult comedy with David Ogden Stiers co-star of M ASH ON STAGE with George and Priscilla Lauris Now Playing July 6, 7, 8 & 9 At the air-conditioned Oregon Repertory Theater 2nd Floor Atrium Building Curtain at 8 p.m. Admission is S6.50 by advance reservation. S7.50 at the door.1 Tickets available at Skeie's Downtown 345-0354, Skeie's Valley River 342-4496, Van Duyn's Interior Accessories SouthTowne Shops 686-9276 and Oregon Repertory Theater Downtown Atrium 99 W. 10th 485-1946
