MU minority program opened to all

By RAE NUDSON
Columbia Missourian
August 8, 2007 2:00 a.m. CST

COLUMBIA - An MU summer workshop for minority students was opened to all students after a lawsuit accused the Dow Jones-sponsored program of racial discrimination.
The Missouri Urban Journalism Workshop, previously known as Dow Jones AHANA Workshop, dropped race from its admission requirements this summer. Doris Barnhart, an MU administrative assistant who works with the workshop, said that until this year, the workshop was strictly for minorities.
The changes followed a federal lawsuit against the Dow Jones minority program, which is held at other schools in addition to MU. The lawsuit was filed by the national Center for Individual Rights, an organization against affirmative action.
The action against the Urban Journalism Workshop is part of a bigger movement to stop the use of race as a requirement in higher education.
In a similar action, the Center for Equal Opportunity filed a complaint against MU with the federal Office for Civil Rights as part of its effort to stop race-based requirements in universities across the country. The center, a national organization that works against affirmative action and promotes assimilation of immigrants, filed the complaint in March 2005, alleging illegal race discrimination in MU’s financial aid programs.
“There are a number of programs at the University of Missouri that are racially exclusive, meaning that you cannot participate in them if you don’t belong to a specific racial or ethnic group,” said center President Roger Clegg.
The center specifically made the complaint against scholarships and financial aid for minority students. It has also filed complaints with the Office for Civil Rights against Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis University, Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., and others, Clegg said.
These actions are part of nationwide efforts to rid higher education of government-sponsored race- and gender-based requirements for programs and scholarships.
The Missouri Civil Rights Initiative is a proposed amendment to the state constitution, slated for the November 2008 ballot, that would prohibit the government from granting preferential treatment based on race or gender. The amendment is supported by a coalition of people from across the state who claim socio-economic status considered instead of race as a way to determine status in programs, according to the Web site missouricri.org. The site also says the initiative would affect public education, public employment and public contracting.
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