THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 12, 1995 TAG: 9510120313
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Voices were raised in bitter counterpoint, sentences cut off in midthought, questions seized and thrashed out: Does affirmative action ever benefit the ``unqualified''? Does it equal quotas or not?
A national teleconference on affirmative action - broadcast Wednesday to dozens of college campuses across the country, including Old Dominion University - generated the usual passions and arguments.
But one participant, Michael Forrest, tried to state a different point.
Forrest, executive director of the National Association of Colleges and Employers, said some forms of affirmative action are still needed. But, he added, ``what the whole panel continues to miss is this: The problem is not race-specific, the problem is not gender-specific. The basic problem affects everyone in the country.''
Black and white youth are not graduating ready for college, and they're not leaving college ready for the workplace. ``What we need to do,'' Forrest said, ``is reach down to the K-through-12 system to make sure they can read and write, so you can't take that away from them.''
Colleges, for instance, should get youngsters thinking early about careers to keep their hopes alive, Forrest said. They should provide summer jobs for them. And after African-American students get admitted to college, ``by God, there ought to be mentor programs to make sure they get through it.''
Yet his voice was barely heard, his ideas virtually untouched, in the stormy debate.
``What affirmative action has done is open doors to public-sector jobs and university opportunities, doors that were closed heretofore,'' said Elaine Jones, a Norfolk native who is director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. ``. . . We cannot say that we do not have a systemic problem of racism in this country.''
On the contrary, said Stephen Balch, president of the National Association of Scholars, ``it teaches people to regard themselves as political victims, as members of a group. It doesn't tell them to do their best.''
The two-hour debate was sponsored by the journal Black Issues in Higher Education, based in Fairfax. It was moderated by columnist Julianne Malveaux, who didn't keep her own views to herself. Though Malveaux jokingly described herself as a ``neutral moderator,'' she also called the movement to restrict affirmative action ``a threat to national security.''
Jones, speaking of the need to remember history, sounded the fiery, eloquent tones of a preacher: ``All of my labor belonged to my master up until 1865. I couldn't accumulate capital. I was discriminated against as a group.''
Sometimes, participants never got that far. When the question of unqualified beneficiaries was raised, Errol Smith spoke up.
``The median SAT scores,'' began Smith, vice chairman of the campaign to ban racial preferences in California. But he got cut off as supporters of affirmative action attacked the value of the SAT college entrance exam.
More than 40 professors and students watched the session at ODU. Two students, Nathan Harris and Lakeshia Williams, said the debate helped them see other perspectives.
``I could see both sides of it,'' said Harris, a graduate student in education, ``but we can't be naive to the fact that racism still exists.''
Williams, a sophomore studying computer science, said: ``I really thought it was helpful. I saw why some people feel there's no need for it. But I think we need affirmative action so we don't go back into the past.''
ODU plans to hold a forum Tuesday for students to discuss the issue.
KEYWORDS: CONFERENCE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION by CNB