Our WordDaily Egyptian
The University is attempting to weather the scrutiny of three of its graduate fellowships by the U.S. Department of Justice because of the assertion by some that they are unfair to white males.
Throughout this tempest, Chancellor Walter Wendler has strongly defended these programs.
"From our perspective, what we're doing is OK," Wendler said.
Wendler even suggested that the University stepped up its vigilance in the wake of the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Gratz v. Bollinger, in which a rigid point system designed to favor minorities at the University of Michigan Law School was struck down.
"Since the Michigan case, we've been very careful," he said.
But even as Wendler made these statements about the graduate fellowships, SIUC hiring procedures listed on the University Web site bore language identifying all tenure-track and select administrative professional appointments as "targeted positions for women and minorities."
What does "targeted" mean?
We hope it doesn't mean that only women and certain minorities will be considered for these positions, or that the factors of gender and race may outweigh an individual's qualifications. This would be a perversion of affirmative action, which, as the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, may be employed as a remedy for past racial discrimination.
But we don't know what "targeted" means in this sense. Neither did Peter Ruger, former SIU General Counsel, who wrote in an e-mail in 2003 that "targeted minority position" was not a term found in the law.
In July, the Justice Department also investigated the hiring practices of the University, and no one has heard on whether the department will press another lawsuit as a result. The silence doesn't mean the University is in the clear.
When it comes to extending opportunity to all regardless of race or gender, how can we be sure what we are doing is OK if no one can provide an exact definition of what we're doing?
No one is served by such ambiguity, least of all the minorities and women hired under such murky practices. Such language merely adds fuel to the fires set by those who seek to undermine affirmative action by claiming discrimination in reverse.
It stigmatizes those hired under such rules by allowing people to scoff that they were hired only because of their gender or minority status. It allows their qualifications and contributions to be disregarded.
Affirmative action does not lock doors. It opens them. It does not raise walls; it knocks them down. Racial discrimination is not remedied by further racial discrimination.
The University must immediately provide a definition of "targeted positions for women and minorities" or delete the language from its hiring procedures. That is a cosmetic minimum.
From there, the University must renew its commitment to expanding the opportunity structure, and hope that will silence the critics who accuse it of doing the reverse.
