Texas Civil Rights Review

Category: Uncategorized

  • Welcome Aboard New York Times

    Restitution for Black Farmers

    A New York Times Editorial
    Published:

    July 27, 2004

    In 1999, African-American farmers won a major civil rights settlement

    against the United States Department of Agriculture. They had argued that the loans and subsidies they

    received were substantially lower than those for comparable white farmers. What made matters worse was

    the fact that Reagan-era budget cuts closed the U.S.D.A.’s civil rights office for 13 years, so most

    of the complaints filed during that time were never heard. To its credit, the department conducted an

    internal investigation and discovered that racial discrimination had not only occurred but had also

    been structurally and historically embedded in its operations.

    What looked like a

    good settlement, promising prompt payment to black farmers, now looks like a failure, according to a

    new investigation by the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group. Again and again, these farmers

    have run up against procedural hurdles that have effectively blocked most of them from receiving

    payments that were supposed to be automatic. Because of poor record-keeping, the U.S.D.A. seriously

    underestimated the number of farmers who had been discriminated against. It also did a terrible job of

    seeking out farmers who might qualify for payments. And it did nothing to help them get the documents

    needed to demonstrate the loan and subsidy support that neighboring white farmers had

    received.

    This is discrimination by a different name – a continuation, in effect, of the

    racism historically entrenched in the U.S.D.A. The department’s resistance and the inherent

    inadequacies in the original settlement have caused a staggering rate of farm failures among small-

    scale black farmers: three times the rate for white farmers. That has sped up the loss of farmland to

    development. In the past few decades, the U.S.D.A. has paid only lip service to the survival of small

    farms. It apparently pays only lip service to civil rights as well. The remedy for this inequity will

    not be found at the department. Carrying out the settlement with fairness and accountability will

    require the intervention of Congress.

    See: TAEX Basics at:

    http://pages.prodigy.net/gmoses/tcrr/taex.htm

  • Gates: Minority Recruitment an Obligation to the State

    “The need for change is the expansion of the faculty; more minority

    recruitment in terms of our obligation to the state of Texas; expanding our research effort and taking

    it to a new, national level; having A&M play on a national stage in important arenas; and more national

    recognition for the achievements of our faculty.”

    Texas A&M President Robert Gates

    interview with Houston Chronicle reporter Todd Ackerman, Jan. 24, 2003. I read this (Jan. 26) within

    an hour after talking to a state regulator who says there’s really not much the state is empowered to

    do when it comes to directing A&M’s “obligations” to diversity. Placing “minority recruitment” in

    the category of “obligations to the state of Texas” is an interesting construction. There were no

    follow up questions published in the interview.

  • AP Report: UT Seeks Cap on Ten Percent Plan

    A University of Texas task force wants the Legislature to put a cap on the number of

    students admitted under a law guaranteeing admission for those who graduated in the top 10 percent of

    their high school class. [AP Jan. 29, 2004.]

    Editor’s Note: See below Sen. Jeff

    Wentworth’s comment to an El Paso reporter, that affirmative action would yield fewer total complaints

    from the public than ten percent.

  • Feedback from Tyrone Smith: Revoke the Funding

    Civil Rights does not mean equal opportunity, it means
    equal results. We do not

    even have equal opportunity in many situations
    (education, job income, etc.) and even if we did, IT

    WOULD NOT BE
    ENOUGH. It is time to take back from the white man what he has taken from us
    for

    so long. Affirmative action is a first step, but we must go
    further. We MUST require quotas for

    corporate America and educational
    institutions to ensure we get what we deserve and are entitled

    to. Texas A&M
    should be stripped of all state funds until it establishes an
    affirmative action

    policy, and if black students don’t exceed the percentage of
    the general populace within 4 years,

    funds should be revoked
    PERMANENTLY. First steps to freedom! [tsmith5001@yahoo.com 1/9/2004]

  • Portales: We Are Constitutionally Correct

    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.