Lawsuit Blasts Minority Journalism Program
As Exclusionary, Discriminatory
By Jamal Watson
Several colleges and universities that sponsor high school summer journalism workshops for minorities are considering loosening their admission requirements in the wake of a class-action lawsuit alleging racial discrimination against White students.
The Center for Individual Rights, a conservative public interest law firm, has filed suit against Virginia Commonwealth University, the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund and the Richmond Times Dispatch. CIR is alleging that the summer high school journalism workshop held each year at VCU is exclusionary and discriminates against White students.
“Racial quotas do not further diversity in any way, shape or form,” says Dr. Terrence J. Pell, the organization’s president. “A segregated program says it’s okay to use special, separate rules for certain races. It’s a short step from that to the more malignant idea that some racial groups can’t compete on the same level as everyone else. No one thinks it is right for the state ever to say that.”
In early 2006, Emily Smith, a White, 15-year-old student at Monacan High School in Virginia, applied to VCU’s Urban Journalism Workshop, an intensive two-week summer camp for about a dozen students held each year. Pell says the teenager met all of the qualifications and was offered a spot in the program, only to have that offer withdrawn once program officials realized she was White. Officials at VCU have thus far declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Since 1984, VCU, with funding from Dow Jones, has had a strong track record of getting minority high school students interested in journalism careers, says Pam D. Lepley, a spokeswoman for the university.
“In the past, we have considered these to be successful programs,” she says, “and obviously we are engaged in them to bring minorities into a profession where they are under-represented.” Lepley says she is unsure if the program will continue.
