w w w w - - - -~ -W w IW lw Frustrated Latino students continue to seek ' U, recognition By Elsa Barboza and Anne Martinez Martinez and University counsel Dan Sharphorn discuss arranging a meeting with Duderstadt. O ne Year Later .. .Commitment to Leadership: The Annual Report on Minority Affairs,1987-88 pro- duced by the Office of the President, the Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Af- fairs, and the Office of the Vice Provost for Mi- nority Affairs can be seen as one of the most recent illustrations of the institutional racism that plagues the University campus. This report, which has been used as a tool for the recruitment of prospective minority students inaccurately portrays many ele- ments of minority student life at the University. The fact that the report was compiled in ten days, and the plethora of fallacies and misrepresentations it contains, too clearly illustrates to us the attitude the administration has continued to take in approaching minority student issues. Since the Report was issued in late August, many concerns have been raised as to the inaccurate information, the misuse and manipulation of statistics, and the actual fabrication of events and University programs geared to minority students. Most recently we, as part of a group of concerned Latino stu- dents, demanded that the report be recalled, citing numerous errors in the information, or rather the lack of information, on Latinos at the University. Wishing to discuss our concerns with President James Duderstadt, we've met with an entourage of University officials, who, it appears to us, insulate Duder- stadt from issues and people that challenge the status quo. Af- ter following the established guidelines for meeting with Dud- erstadt and receiving no response, we were forced to take group action and stage a sit-in at the Fleming Administration build- ing to secure a meeting with him. Latino students wishing to see the Duderstadt met with brute tactics at the hands of Public Safety deputies Leo Heatley and Robert Pifer. Students wish- ing to voice concerns affecting minorities are consistently re- ferred to Charles Moody, vice "scapegoat" for minority affairs, to be pacified. Persons identified to "represent" Duderstadt in his absence are ignorant of the issues at hand and hence unable to provide any assistance. For example, during a meeting with Barboza is a senior in Latino Studies and sociology; Martinez is a senior in Latino Studies and anthropology. They are both members of Socially Active Latino Student Association. Robin Jacoby, assistant to the president, Jacoby said she knew nothing about our concerns. As Latino students, we have found that the Fleming Administration building, more than anywhere else on campus, provides the grounds for breeding the bacteria of racism, ignorance, and intolerance. The burden of addressing and correcting the ills of this Uni- versity are consistently dropped in the laps of students. Though our mission here is to be students - and recruiters, watchdogs, researchers, and administrators are being paid to "diversify" the University - minority students most fre- quently have had to take on those staff and administrative du- ties in addition to their student ones. In terms of correcting the Annual Report on Minority Affairs, the President indicated that an errata sheet would be inserted into future issues, but that the errata sheet had to be compiled by the students not by administration officials. If the officials responsible for compiling the report do not start taking effective action to correct this report, do not start finding out about the real conditions of minorities at the University, how can they accu- rately do this in future reports. Any student who produced a report of such distinctly poor quality would be failed; the fac- ulty at this institution take the use of incorrect resources, the misuse of statistics, and lies very seriously. This is probably even grounds for expulsion from the University. On June 1, 1987 Charles D. Moody was appointed to the position of vice provost for minority affairs. This was part of the Six-Point Plan that former President Shapiro undertook in the wake of student pressure to address minority issues in 1987. The Plan was the administration's pick of the United Coalition Against Racism's (UCAR) twelve demands. Point One reads: Appoint a vice provost with responsibility for mi- nority affairs, and Shapiro appointed Moody. As vice provost for minority affairs, Moody has done nothing for Latinos. In fact, the administration set him up as its scapegoat for minority affairs. From our experience, his job is to pacify the students, to pull them aside individually to dilute their con- cerns and even offer them jobs. The establishment of the Of- fice of Minority Affairs has not provided Latinos with the vital leadership and support that the administration has promised us. This band-aid, cure-all method that has been applied to minor- ity issues, can only detract from Duderstadt's Michigan Man- date. The Mandate is what Duderstadt has proclaimed as the Photos by Jessica Greene "roadmap" for the University to use, in his words, "to develop effective models of multicultural, pluralistic communities" for the 21st Century. As we rapidly approach the forecasted change in demographics in which Latinos and Blacks will outnumber whites, the University structure increasingly approaches a condition of apartheid, where white males will "govern" the oh so diverse population. We cannot wait til 1999 for the imple- mentation of the Michigan Mandate. If the administration can- not deal with the ethnic diversity that already exists here, how will it ever achieve a multicultural and diverse environment in the year 2000? All Duderstadt is giving us is rhetorical recognition. Duderstadt holds the Michigan Mandate high as one of his main priorities. On paper, he has made a commitment to us, but the reality we see consists of the continued exclusion of Latinos from decision-making and hiring processes, from key administrative positions, and from the Michigan Mandate it- self. When the subject of Latino Studies and Latino faculty came up during the summit we won with Duderstadt after the sit-in, he told us we would have to discuss it with "the appro- priate deans," meaning of course, for LSA, Dean Peter Steiner. Last year student groups called for Steiner to resign, saying that he was racist. The best news for Latinos in eight years, is that Steiner has "chosen" not to complete his five year term. We, the students, have to recruit minority faculty and stu- dents for LSA; we have to invite Latino scholars to visit Michigan; we have to initiate cultural programming, and beg University departments for funding. The only support for Latino students is other Latino students. And recent history has shown, approximately 50% of us will not complete degree programs at the University due to the deplorable conditions that are forced upon us. Because the handful of Latino faculty and staff are overburdened with the heavy weight of tokenism, they are not in a position to assert their leadership and mentoring abilities. We've done the job of many vice provosts, researchers and Hispanic representatives, and we're not even getting paid for it. Although the University claims that there are some 30 Latino faculty members, most of them are not the underrepre- sented Latinos from the United States. They are primarily Latin Americans or Spaniards, who have not lived their entire lives as victims of the cultural oppression that is ever-present in the United States. There is one Puerto Rican and one Cuban faculty member, but there are no Chicano (Mexican American) faculty members. Complete statistics on the University's Latino Community are impossible to obtain, since Affirma- tive Action does not find our existence worthy of documenta- tion. The office categorizes the minority community as 'Blacks" and "Other minorities." We have demanded that a study be done on Latino sub-group identification (i.e. Chi- cano/Mexican-American, Boricua/Puerto Rican, Chilean, Spanish, etc.) of all Latino students and faculty and staff members and at the University for the purpose of setting fac- ulty, staff, and administrative goals on the basis of student sub-group populations. During our meeting with Duderstadt, he claimed that such a study is currently being worked on,- though, as usual, no one has contacted any Latinos for input - which would be central to a self-identification study. One of the few Latino assistant professors at the University, Silvia Pedraza-Bailey, is the director of the Latino Studies Program and is also an assistant professor in the Sociology department. She is the only faculty member in the Latino Studies Program. The vast majority of Latino Studies courses are taught by graduate students and part-time lecturers, many of whom are not even Latinos. The easiest way to recruit Latino faculty would be to do it through the Latino Studies program. Besides dramatically increasing the Latino faculty percentages, building up the Latino Studies Program would send the na- tional Latino community a message that the University is fi- nally getting serious about Latino concerns. In 1984, after several years of struggle for a academic program about Latinos in the U.S., the Latino Studies Program was born. A year later, the University started to undo the Program. In 1985, Latino Studies was "granted" a three-year probationary period as a program in LSA. In 1986, the Latino Studies director po- sition was changed from one assistant professor to half an as- sistant professor. Assistant professor John Chivez formerly held the post full-time, but Pedraza-Bailey was installed as a joint appointee. There is also rampant misuse of percentages to cover up the lack of support andresources for Latinos. Let's imagine there are 10 Latino students at the University. By bringing 5 new students in, the University has miraculously had a 50% in- crease in Latino enrollment. Though without a doubt this is an impressive figure, the horrifying reality of the raw numbers tells the real story. These percentages do not reflect the reality of the University's embarrassing failure in recruiting and re- taining minority students. In terms of faculty recruitment, the only Latinos that are coming to the University are coming under the auspices of the King/Chavez/Parks Visiting Professorship Program. These professors come to the University for approximately 1-3 days. Activities are planned so students, staff and faculty can meet with the visiting scholar. If we want to meet these Latino role models, we have to rearrange our schedules during the visit. Otherwise, we miss out. When the scholars leave we experi- ence the disappointment of the lack of role models, and "we hold onto their sleeves of their shirts" because of the realiza- tion of the lack of Latino professors at the University. The University is teasing the minority students with this "Weekend Scholars Program." The University is using the King/Chivez/Parks Program to replace rather than supplement Latino scholars. One of the newest programs the University rants and raves about is the Target of Opportunity Program. The Target pro- vides "new appointments of senior minority faculty." The University reports that "in the 1987-88 academic year, roughly $1,000,000 in base funds has been set aside for this recruiting effort and already fourteen new minority faculty have been hired." Well, the number is up to 19 now and this "minority faculty" that they are talking about are all Black faculty. We laud the University's success in bringing more Black faculty here, however, Black faculty do not fulfill the needs of Latino and other minority students. Several minority student organizations have questioned the "success" of Target of Op- portunity. When we approached those in charge they respond with different reasons why Latino, Native-American, and Asian-American potential candidates have not been hired through this program. The Target of Opportunity Program has no guidelines and that may explain the reason why we receive conflicting answers, if any, from Mary Ann Swain, director o Affirmative Action. When she spoke with the Asian-Americar community a few weeks ago, she refused to talk abou individual cases in which Latino or Asian faculty were no hired. She refused to talk about how the funding is distributed what the guidelines for Target of Opportunity are, and who has to initiate what to hire someone through this godsend. The administration claims to have offered three Latinos po- sitions at the University but they say that these Latino schol- ars declined. The Latino community has not been included in any of these efforts. One case in which several Latinos were involved in targeting Latino scholars ended when the Univer- sity refused to acknowledge the candidate as an appropriate re- cipient for Target funding. The ethnicity of this candidate was in question due to the fact that she is Jewish, as well as Latina. The Office of the Associate Dean for Academic Ap- pointments went so far as to construct a geneaology of the candidate to clarify her ethnicity. Though this candidate was "not Hispanic enough" for Target funding, she was still in- cluded in Latino faculty figures as a visiting professor. It is clear to us that the University lacks awareness of the many groups that fall under the category "Hispanic." Administrators are oblivious to the racial and cultural diversity of Latin America. It is incomprehensible to us that people making de- Americans. Our more recent Americans have in fact been ing funding, because they are However, the University feel total minority enrollment fig these decisions are not quali mine the ethnicity of Latinos These problems cannot be minorities are incorporated it course of the University for t Administrators are oblivious to the ra cultural diversity of Latin America. Ii incomprehensible to us that people m decisions like hiring Hispanics, have understanding of what the term mea cisions like hiring Hispanics the term means. Somehow, Latino scholars Target. The double standards the Target of Opportunity fur ous structure of the Prograr Dean for Academic Appointr Target was solely for hiring fice disclosed that Target fund then Native Americans, follo Robin Jacoby, assistant to the president, meets with students to discuss their PAGE 8 WEEKEND/DECEMBER 9, 1988 W WEEKEND/DECEMBER 9, 1988