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
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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’
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