Email: “Hola, Greg”
from Professor Marco Portales,
Texas A&M
University
Thu, 29 Jan 2004
Dear Greg,
Glad I have your e-mail
address from your
Texas Civil Rights Review website. Good to
see some outside help. I read your
letter to
the Eagle and the one to the Battalion and
meant to write to you . . . but I
have
been busy finishing the books listed below.
I have been writing on the race issue
for
awhile, as you may have gathered. FYI: When the minority faculty and staff met
with
President Gates on campus on December 18th,
2003 (a meeting that was not reported by any
of
the media), four Latino faculty members
stood up, as well as several other faculty
and
staff TAMU members, to urge him to follow
the Grutter decision, to leave legacy behind,
and
to do several other things that we believe would
improve our chances of recruiting more
minority
students and faculty. But he was already committed
to the position of admitting
applicants only on
“merit” considerations, excluding race anew (as
Hopwood, which has now been
superseded)
required between 1996 and 2003.
Below I am sending you my recent
and
forthcoming publications, two of which
address the issue of why we should embrace
race, in
keeping with the Constitution. As
you can see, I don’t buy the way conservative
groups have
interpreted the 14th Amendment
for their convenience, just as they had it their
way before the
Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Part of the problem is that they always want it
their way, and only
their way, without working to
bring in the perspectives of minorities.
Fortunately, Justice
O’Connor saw the
constitutionality of Bakke. So we are
constitutionally correct; the problem is
that
they have the power and the support of the
general public,
unfortunately….
Best
regards,
Marco
_____________________________
BOOK MANUSCRIPTS
under Contract for Publication
“Quality Education for Latinos: Print and Oral Skills
for All Students, K-College”; this book manuscript, written with my wife, Rita Portales, is designed
to produce more academically-competitive minority students. The 272-page manuscript received an
advanced contract from the University of Texas
Press in the summer of 2003 and will be published
late in 2004 or early 2005
“Latino Sun, Rising: Our Spanish-speaking U.S. World” is a
collection of 44 essays divided into three parts: Youth (8), Parenthood (12), and Public Policy Issues
(24).
The Texas A&M Press will published this 310-page
manuscript in Fall 2004
BOOK
CrowdingOut Latinos: Mexican Americans in the Public
Consciousness Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000; 209 pages
FORTHCOMING
ARTICLE
“A History of Latino Segregation Lawsuits” in The Unfinished Agenda of Brown
v. Board of Education, edited by James Anderson; Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, (March or
April, 2004, 20 pp.
REFEREED PUBLICATIONS
“Can the Supreme Court
Constitutionally Uphold the
Hopwood Opinion? Race, ‘Color-blindness’ and Public Opinion before
Bakke,” Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts & Letters , Volume 26, Number 1, Winter 2003,
26-46. Article traces the history of the concept of “color- blindness” from the Reconstruction Period
following the Civil War to Bakke and Hopwood.
“Examining the Recruitment and
Enrollment of Eligible Hispanic and African American Students at Selective Public Texas
Universities,” New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1999, Volume 16, Readings on Equal Education, an education
series. One of eleven articles in Education of Hispanics in the United States: Politics, Policies and
Outcomes, pp. 201-222.
“Hopwood, Race, Bakke and the Constitution,” Texas Hispanic
Journal of Law and Policy, University of Texas School of Law publication, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring
1998, pp. 29-44.
“Anti-Hopwood: Why Race Ought to be Legally Recognized,” The
Hopwood Effect: Problems, Prospects, and Impacts on Minorities in Higher Education; conference
proceedings, edited by Mitchell Rice, Race and Ethnic Studies Institute, Texas A&M University, Fall
1998; pp. 172-176.
“Affirmative Action: Best Idea, So Far,” Hispanonoticias: The
Hispanic Caucus of the American Association for Higher Education, featured one-page article; June
1995.
“K-12 Education and the Responsibilities of the University,” one-page excerpt
published by HACU, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities; Seventh Annual Meeting
presentation; Washington, D.C., October 1993.
Texas Civil Rights Review 