Page 4 Portland Observer, March 4, 1982
Black students and the School of Law
EDITORIAL/OPINION
Oregon needs leadership
The State Legislature fin a lly made a decision
M o n d a y n ig h t. They added $193.9 m illio n in
new taxes and cu t $136.1 m illio n fro m state
agency budgets and property tax relief.
The Legislature managed to hold the line on
agency cuts— $87 m illio n as opposed to the G ov
e rn o r’ s proposed $120.9 m illio n , and on basic
school support w ith $16.3 m illio n rath er than
the G overnor’ s proposed $21.3 m illio n.
They made up the difference by adding cigar
ette taxes and an income tax surcharge, and by
cutting property tax relief on the more expensive
homes. In other words, those who are still w o rk
ing and have expensive homes w ill pay a little
more taxes.
N e ith e r the L e g is la tu re n o r the G o v e rn o r
dem onstrated the decisive leadership necessary
to raise th e m o n e y th a t is needed to keep a
q u a lity e d u ca tio n system and to p ro v id e the
services e s s e n tia l d u r in g these tim e s o f
d e p re s s io n
w h en
m any
p e o p le
are
unem ployed.
There are other avenues fo r raising m oney—
one being a state lottery. We hope that when the
Legislature convenes next January it w ill take
that under consideration. Several weeks ago we
tested public opinion and found a willingness to
try this option.
In light o f the performance o f the Legislature
in its recent special session, the residents o f Ore
gon s h o u ld c a re fu lly co n s id e r th e ir e le c tio n
choices. Those who are elected frequently forget
whom they are elected to serve.
Poor Bob!
Senator Bob P ackw ood was rig h t when he
said President Reagan’ s “ concept o f A m e rica ’ ’
has h u rt the R epublican p a rty and that he is
sometimes unresponsive to Republican congres
sional leaders. He m ig h t have added that Rea
gan is unresponsive to the needs o f the Am erican
people.
Packw ood’ s m istake is his apology under fire
from the W hite House and the Republican party
leadership— state and national.
A pparently Packwood felt he was correct and
s till believes he is correct. So w hy apologize fo r
the truth?
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by Manning Marable
One o f the key elements in the ra
cist reaction against Black people in
the 1980s has been the serious reduc
tion o f Black students adm itted to
this nation’s law schools. Black law
yers provide the legal troops so es
sential in challenging discrimination
and Reagan’s backward and bank
rupt public policy agenda. A t the
University o f Pennsylvania’ s Law
School, Black students recently
staged a highly successful c o n fer
ence (in which I took part as a fea
tured speaker) by certain quarters o f
the Black media in Philadelphia, re
veals much as to the currently con
fused status o f the Black M o v e
ment.
Throughout its history, the U n i
versity o f Pennsylvania Law School
has merited critical acclaim as one
o f the country's leading centers for
the study o f ju risp ru d en ce. L ike
other Ivy League institutions, it has
also practiced a policy o f W hite Su
premacy that w ould m ake even
George W allace blush w ith envy.
From I88S until I9S9, only 13 Black
students graduated from the Law
School. Between I9 6 0 and 1968, a
mere 7 Blacks achieved law degrees.
The unrelenting political pressure o f
the C iv il Rights M ovem ent forced
the school to capitulate to Blacks*
demands. The number o f Black Law
School graduates at the University
o f Pennsylvania jum ped from 6 in
1969 to 14 in 1973, 20 in 1974, and
31 in 1979.
But with Reaganism and the polit
ical reaction o f recent years, the
progress o f the 1970s was quickly re
versed. Only 18 Blacks graduated in
1981, and 11 graduated this Spring.
One o f only two Black faculty mem
bers was denied tenure last summer.
A t a faculty meeting in late 1981,
oarganized chiefly to discuss race
relatio n s, very little was accom
plished. In an open letter, one Black
law student expressed her profound
frustrations with both the meeting
and the continuation o f institutional
racism: “ The faculty failed to offer
any sort o f solutions to the problem
( o f race re latio n s ). R ath er, they
again demonstrated their insensitiv
ity, i f not racism, towards the m i
n o rity presence at Penn. For
example, not a single professor in
attendance bothered to challenge
the proposition that, ’it is a held be
lief that minorities at this law school
are in te lle c tu a lly in f e r io r .’ This
proposition was put before the fac
ulty body not once, but twice; and
twice it went unchallenged. Racism
is a real and pervasive issue in this
institution and it would be unrealis
tic to expect the perpetuators o f the
problem to devise the solution."
Black law students at Penn spon
sored the annual Mid-East Regional
Conference o f Black American Law
Students Association (B A L S A ) on
February 5-7. The central theme o f
the conference was "Perspective for
the Eighties— Challenges and Re
sponsibilities o f the Black Legal
C om m unity." W ith an almost non
existent budget, the students
brought to Penn an impressive array
o f Black legal and political activists,
including Philadelphia Congress
man B ill G ray; New Jersey State
Representative Wayne Bryant; Vic
tor G oode, Executive D irector o f
the N atio n al Conference o f Black
Law yers; New Y o rk Judge Bruce
Wright; and the Honorable A. Leon
H ig g in b oth am , U .S . judge o f the
C o urt o f Appeals, T h ird D istrict.
Black student leader R obert A .
Marchman informed the media that
the conference’ s goal was " t o in
crease our awareness and knowledge
o f the social, economic and legal
problems adversely affecting Black
law people.”
Curiously, on the first day o f the
conference. Chuck Slone, one o f the
most prominent Black journalists in
Am erica and a leader o f P hiladel
p h ia’s Black com m unity, used the
pages o f the P h ila d e lp h ia D a ily
News to criticize Penn’ s Black law
students. Stone’s chief lament was
that David M . W hite, the author o f
Towards a Diversified Legal Profes
sio n, was not in attendance. The
w hite legal scholar, who lives in
Berkeley, C alifo rn ia, has analyzed
the problem o f relatively low law
school admissions test (L S A T )
scores among Blacks. Stone charged
that W hite "w asn’t invited because
his new book is more important to
Black law students than anything
they’ ll be discussing this weekend."
Sessions on “ T h ird W o rld C o n
cern s" and the "C o n s e rv a tiv e
T r e n d " were " u n re la te d to law
school success." F or Stone, the
question o f the cutbacks in Black
law students was related to " a
dwindling number o f qualified m i
norities.” The conference "should
have assigned more energies to the
hermorrhaging o f their SQ (survival
quotient).”
For Penn’ s Black law students,
S tone’ s criticism was unexpected
and even somewhat puzzling. They
had previously invited Stone to
appear at the conference, where he
could have aired his criticisms in a
more fraternal manner. In a letter
dated January 12, 1982, he declined
to attend, but wished the students
well. Since the conference was able
to pay only modest honoraria and
travel expenses, they could not have
afforded to invite W h ite from the
West coast— a sim ple fact that
Stone, who was invited, should have
known.
Penn's Black students are con
cerned about the L S A T . On
February 9, 1982, the Black pre-law
undergrads even held a detailed
seminar on the L S A T featu ring
Alan Freedman o f the National Cen
ter for Educational Testing. But the
simple fact remains that the basic
reason that Black admissions to law,
m edical and o th er professional
schools has declined recently has
less to do with low board scores and
more to do with politics. Black stu
dents at most law schools today who
are accepted have L S A T scores that
are 50 to 75 points higher on average
than they were a decade ago. Yet
Black admissions in the 1970s were
higher than today.
Stone’s daughter attends Penn as
an undergraduate student, so he un
doubtedly has some cursory insight
into (he current struggles against ra
cism on campus. But the question
remains— why the unmerited c riti
cism o f Black law students on the
eve o f what was viewed by most ob
servers as one o f the most successful
meetings o f its kind held this aca
demic year?
The opinion o f one close observer
o f Black Philadelphia politics sug
gests (hat Stone’s salvo at Black law
students could be indirectly related
to his continued vendetta with a ma
jo r conference speaker, B ill G ray.
According to this source. Stone con
sidered himself as heir apparent to
the Congressional seat o f R .N . Nix.
W hen G ray won the seat, Stone's
position was preempted. In 1981 he
pondered a race against the Dem o
crat Gray by running as a Republi
can, a strategy not unrelated Io (hat
o f Slate Senator M ilto n Street.
When he determined that he could
not win in G ray’s district, he decid
ed to bide his tim e , a ttac kin g the
Congressman's political activities.
D id G ra y ’ s p a rtic ip a tio n at Penn
trigger Stone's column?
What Stone may not recognize is
that his unthinking and uncharac
teristic broadside could be used to
underm ine the p o litic al resolve o f
Blacks at law schools besides Penn.
The struggle to increase the number
o f Black atto rn eys, the struggle
against racism, demands a greater
degree o f responsibility than Stone
has recently exhibited.
Reagan agenda ineffective
Letters to the Editor
Administration ignores repression in South Africa
To the editor:
Secretary o f State Haig brought a
message from President Reagan to
the Chicago rally held in support of
the Polish union S o lid arity a few
weeks ago. “ We will not do business
with the Soviet Union or P o lan d ,"
he said, “ as long as there is repres
sion in P o la n d .” N o m atter what
your feelings about the Polish situa
tion, those o f us concerned with the
plight o f the twenty million Blacks
in South Africa found cold comfort
in the statement.
Poland has been a com munist-
ruled country for decades. By West
ern definition communist means re
pressive. In the world of realpolitik,
no other reaction should have been
expected o f the Polish regime when
confronted with Solidarity.
In South A fric a , however, we
have a government that claims to be
a republic where people vote fo r
their political leaders. In reality, the
84 per cent o f the population that is
non-white has no political voice at
all. Yet, that government prides it
self on being a member o f the free
world; and our government not onlv
recognizes that m em bership b ut,
under the R e a g a n /H a ig /C ro c k e r
policy o f constructive engagement,
seeks closer ties between us and
them.
C o n vien tly o verlo o ked — or ex
plained away— is the long history o f
repression, oppression and racism
practiced by the governm ent o f
South Africa. Racism is written into
its constitution and repression and
oppression the aim o f its intricate
web o f apartheid laws.
Like Lech Walesa, Nelson M an
dela demanded for his people the
right to vote. Nelson M andela has
been in jail on Robben Island for al
most twenty years. Like Lech W a l
esa, Steve Biko attempted to build
solidarity among his people. Steve
Biko was killed while in police cus
tody in 1977. L ik e Lech W alesa,
Thozamile Gqweta seeks to organize
the workers o f his country. Thoza
mile Gqweta is now in jail.
W hy is our President so dis
traught at repression in a Com m u
nist state and so accepting o f it in a
so-called free -w o rld nation? I ’ ve
come to the sad, disturbing conclu
sion that racism is so entrenched in
the American system that repression
o f Black people just isn’t terribly re
pugnant to us. And so we are out
raged by Poland but do business as
usual with South Africa.
Franklin H. Williams
President, Phelps Stokes Fund
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toaoclatloo - Fow.w<ed 11
“ In the midst o f one o f the most
severe economic crises that this na
tion has experienced, the President
o ffers us a plan fo r ‘ new fed e r
alism.” This plan will have no effect
whatsoever on the economic prob
lems that confront us. The President
has attempted to divert our atten
tion to the discussion o f a relatively
esoteric issue o f the appropriate role
o f the Federal Government in pro
viding basic services that he in d i
cates would not begin until fiscal
year 1984, or October 1983; a full 18
months from now. M eanw hile, he
has said nothing about the con
tinued reductions in programs de
signed to train and educate A m er
icans who are not equipped to take
advantage o f any employment op
portunities that might become avail
able as a result o f his economic re
covery program. Moreover, he does
not clarify the fact that the plan to
return the responsibility for adm in
istering over 40 Federal programs to
the states will not include sufficient
revenues to operate these programs
at their current 1982 levels. Mitchell
stated further that, by so doing, we
can be sure that states will be unable
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tunities to put individuals back to
work, including the 16.1 per cent of
Black A m ericans and others who
are currently unemployed.
f "
Portland Observer
0regon
Newspaper
Publishers
Association
Congressman Parren J. M itchell
(D -7 th -M d .), a ranking member o f
the Jo in t Econom ic C o m m itte e ,
criticized the Administration for de
veloping an ineffective response to
the nation’s fundamental economic
problems.
"A lth o u g h the A dm inistration’ s
fiscal year 1983 budget has not been
fu llly revealed, the President in
dicated in his message that we must
’ summon the strength to continue
on the course we have charted.’ This
means that the Adm inistration has
no in ten tio n o f takin g actions to
eliminate the persistent problems o f
high unemployment and high inter
est rates in his 1983 budget. Instead,
9.5 m illion Americans who are out
o f w o rk , and thousands o f small
businesses are asked to ’summon the
strength’ to continue suffering ;
w hile large corpo ratio ns and
w ealthy in d ivid u als continue to
enjoy the rewards o f the A dm inis
tration’s recently enacted tax prefer
ences----- Even the President ack
nowledges the unfairness o f the cur
rent situation by proposing to
’ strengthen the m in im um tax on
c o rp o ra tio n s .’ W h ile this action
might serve to partially rectify an in
equitable situation, it will do little,
if a n y th in g , to stim ulate em
ploym ent and investm ent o ppor-
National Advertising Ret resantatlve
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to provide needed services without
dramatically increasing state and lo
cal taxes. By 1991, the time that the
plan allows for a com plete tran s i
tion o f responsibility from the Fed
eral Government to the states, A m
ericans will be paying more taxes for
less services and no safeguards for
the future.
“ The President also proposes an
experimental program to revitalize
depressed urban and rural com mu
nities by providing ad d itio n al tax
preferences and the re lax a tio n o f
various regulations. As we all know,
there has already been substantial
tax relief enacted to increase busi
ness investm ent. T h u s, the lik e li
hood o f a dramatic increase in busi
ness investment and job creation is
minimal. Two-thirds o f the current
jobs are produced by small busi
nesses. The greatest need o f small
businessses is not a d d itio n a l tax
preferences, but rather, for sources
o f capital with whith to expand or
im prove
existing
con d itio n s.
M itchell indicates that such a p ro
posal, given its costs in terms o f lost
revenues, may endanger the day-to-
day survival o f citizens who live in
these depressed areas, and th e re
fo re , the proposal should not be
viewed as a substitute for existing
targeted urban programs.”
Mitchell concluded: " I will not be
draw n in to elab o ra te discussions
and criticisms o f the ’ New Federal
ism ’ and urban enterprise zones.
Rather, I will continue to focus iny
a tten tio n on relevant Federal ac
tions to the im m ediate n atio n al
problems o f chronically high unem
ployment and high interest rates.”
State.
Portland Observer
Box 3137
Portland, OR 97208
William Douglas served c
the Supreme Court for 3
o th e r ju s tic e in history