Surveying the battleground in the fight for access - equal opportunity in education cases

Black Issues in Higher Education, May 15, 1997 by Cheryl D. Fields

admissions decisions. Several of the plaintiffs in

that case are now suing for damages.

Last month, Norma Cantu, the assistant

secretary for the OCR, challenged Morales's

position by asserting that the Hopwood case

only applied to the University of Texas and that

other institutions in the state would be expected

to abide by the Supreme Court's decision in the

1978 Bakke case. But Cantu amended her

position after an uproar in Texas caused U.S.

Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas) to urge

Education Secretary Richard Riley to rescind

Cantu's directive.

Virginia

In Virginia, a battle is being waged in the

Northern Virginia Community College system

over a privately funded scholarship that has

traditionally been given to African American

students. The $500 Leslie V. Forte scholarship

has historically been administered by the college,

but now a white student has cried foul, claiming

that the public institution shouldn't be involved

in administering a scholarship that discriminates

on the basis of race. The OCR is investigating. If

the case ends up in federal court, the Fourth

Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which ruled in

Maryland's Podberesky decision, will have

jurisdiction. Because Virginia and Maryland

previously maintained legal systems of

segregation, they are bound by a previous court

decision in the Adams case, which means they

are obligated to eliminate any vestiges of

segregation. Other Adams states discussed in this

article include: Texas, Alabama, Louisiana,

Mississippi and Ohio.

Washington

Meanwhile in the northwestern state of

Washington, the same legal team that

represented the plaintiffs in the Hopwood case

-- the Center for Individual Rights -- has stepped up

to represent another white student, who is suing

the University of Washington Law School on

grounds that she too was denied admission on

the basis of race.