Black-only awards end at 2 colleges

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Washington University in St. Louis announced Friday it will open a black-student scholarship program to applicants of all races, after federal officials encouraged the move earlier this week.\nSt. Louis University, which civil rights investigators also visited this week, also has opened a similar scholarship program to applicants of all races.\nThese decisions are part of a national movement away from the affirmative-action programs that helped ease black students' entry into higher education after the era of educational segregation. \nAt the urging of the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, colleges are embracing "race-neutral alternatives" they hope will allow them to follow the law while still enrolling a diverse student body. So far, about 100 schools have revised formerly minority-specific programs, according to the Center for Equal Opportunity, which filed the complaints against the two universities in St. Louis.\nWashington University Vice Chancellor James McLeod said students should not get the impression the University no longer supports diversity because the John B. Ervin Scholars Program is no longer for black applicants only.\n"I'm disappointed for many reasons," McLeod said of the change. "But I'm not discouraged by this. It presents a greater challenge. I am committed to a climate at the university where kids can come of age and learn to live and work together as they must do when they leave us here. That means we need to seek every legal and tasteful way to build that kind of an environment."\nThe move toward "race-neutral" programs stems from two developments. \nThe U.S. Supreme Court held last year in a discrimination case against the University of Michigan that while colleges may consider race in admissions decisions, they also must treat students as individuals and not use race as the sole criterion for accepting or rejecting them for programs.\nAlso, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights agrees with anti-affirmative action groups that minority-only programs amount to illegal discrimination against white students.\nOne of those groups is the Center for Equal Opportunity, which opposes race-exclusive policies.\n"We're very gratified that both St. Louis University and Washington University have come to their senses and realized that in light of the University of Michigan rulings, race-exclusive programs just can't be defended in a court of law," said Edward Blum, a senior fellow at the center. "The most gratifying thing is that both schools apparently don't intend to drop these resources for students but, rather, open them up to every student based on need and other criteria than race."\nSince 1986, Washington University has awarded 10 Ervin scholarships every year to black students at the private college. They fully cover tuition and provide a $2,500-per-year stipend along with academic support.\nBut starting in the fall of 2005, the scholarships will go to applicants of any race who demonstrate exceptional academic and leadership achievements, community service accomplishments and a commitment to meeting the needs of the less fortunate, the University said Friday.\nSLU has ended the Ernest A. Calloway Jr. program. Each year, it had awarded 30 black students $11,000 per year. \nIn its place is the new Martin Luther King Jr. scholarship program, open to applicants of all races. Scholarships will go to students who demonstrate leadership potential for promoting King's dream of a diverse but unified America, university officials said. Factors considered will include a student's academic achievement, cultural experience, leadership ability, economic circumstances and geographic roots, as well as the educational attainment of the students' parents.\nOfficials hope many of the 100 scholarships, worth $8,000 a year, will go to minority students.\n"Prior to the Michigan admissions decision, it was our belief that our Calloway scholars program was within legal confines," said the university's provost, Joe Weixlmann. "In the wake of that decision, it increasingly became our belief that we did need to modify the program to move to more of a race-neutral concept."\nBut another reason for changing, Weixlmann said, was the new program would better enable the university to attract Hispanic students, who are part of a fast-growing segment of the population.\nPlus, more and more students identify themselves as biracial, making it less logical to offer a scholarship to only black students, he said.\n"While this started as a 'Woe is us; we think we've got to change' thing," Weixlmann said, "the idea then became, 'how do we do something that really is better and that reflects the broad definitions of diversity and reflects the overall campus commitment'" to diversity.\nBut St. Louis University officials worry that publicity over the changed scholarship criteria could prompt fewer black students to apply to the Jesuit university, where 7 percent of undergraduates are black.\nChris Clark, a Raytown High School graduate who attends St. Louis University on a Calloway scholarship, said black students would have to do even more work helping recruitment efforts to keep the student body diverse.\nHe said he understood why some members of the black community might question the university's decision. But he said he believes the university remains committed to enrolling minority students.\n"Initially, people felt it (disbanding the Calloway program) was an attack against us," said Clark, a 20-year-old junior. "We already worked hard enough, and now it seemed that instead of making progress, we're regressing. But the more I've talked to people and they've explained the politics behind it, the idea that our school has the same spirit of the Calloway in mind should quell people's emotions, and they'll be more accepting." \nThe Center for Equal Opportunity has challenged some programs at the University of Missouri-Columbia, too.\nMU responded that its programs were open to all students, but Blum said the center would monitor MU Web sites and brochures to evaluate whether MU has made that openness apparent.\nHe said the center had not filed complaints about University of Kansas programs but that does not mean it wouldn't have concerns about KU's programs if it were to investigate them.\nWhile universities scramble to refashion race-specific programs, the Office for Civil Rights has printed two lengthy reports delineating "race-neutral alternatives," such as outreach programs that target low-income or first-generation college students.\nCentral Missouri State University in Warrensburg, Mo., is introducing a new program it hopes will help bring more minority students to campus while not running afoul of anti-discrimination laws.\nThe program will be open to students of any race, but because it will be limited to high schools in the heavily-minority Kansas City School District and to students whose parents and grandparents lack college degrees, the university believes many of the Summer Bridge participants will be from ethnic minority backgrounds.