For immediate release

HACU Summit on Diversity
labeled ‘extraordinary success’

WASHINGTON, D.C –The inaugural Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) Summit on Diversity was hailed as “an extraordinary success” in uniting the national leadership of campus, corporate, government and community sectors to promote diversity as a national priority.

“Our shared commitment to keep diversity at the forefront of all efforts to enhance our country’s social and economic progress made this Summit an outstanding success,” said HACU President and CEO Antonio R. Flores following last week’s Summit in Washington, D.C.

HACU’s Summit on Diversity, sponsored by the General Motors Corporation, took place March 31 on the campus of The George Washington University, co-host for an event celebrating the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions of 2003 upholding diversity in admissions policies at the University of Michigan.

“For Latinos, the stakes are critical – as they are for all Americans,” said Flores, whose association represents 360 colleges and universities – including the University of Michigan -- that collectively serve more than two-thirds of all Hispanic higher education students.

“This is not an issue that should be viewed along minority versus non-minority lines. All Americans benefit by the promise of equal opportunity to achieve higher education success in diverse learning communities; all Americans would suffer by denying the importance of diversity in the most culturally and racially diverse nation of the world,” Flores said.

In what has been called the most important affirmative action decision in a generation, the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2003 upheld the use of race and ethnic background in admissions policies. The opinion upheld the specific admissions policies in place at the School of Law at the University of Michigan, while rejecting a specific point system used in undergraduate admissions policies.

HACU had joined leading national organizations, corporations and civil rights groups in defense of the University of Michigan in legal arguments filed with the Supreme Court preceding the decisions.
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“We need affirmative action,” said University of Texas System Chancellor Mark Yudof, who presides over one of the nation’s largest higher education systems with 15 campuses and an enrollment of more than 160,000 students. Without opening more doors to college to all diverse communities, “we face the risk of a permanent underclass, which no democracy can survive.”

Promoting policies that encourage a diverse student enrollment is not only right; it is the smart strategy, said University of Michigan Provost Paul Courant. “The smart investment ... is the development of people who can operate in a multicultural world.”

Continuing challenges

“The Supreme Court decisions did not mark the end of the struggle,” Courant said, referring to an effort under way in Michigan to place an anti-affirmative action initiative on the state’s November 2004 ballot.

The Educational Testing Service has predicted within the next few years college enrollment will increase by some 2 million students, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, President of The George Washington University, told the Summit on Diversity.

“Of these 2 million new students, 80 percent will come from racial and language minority groups. Finding ways to respond to students who may represent the first generation in their family to go to college, helping students for whom English is not their native language, and supporting young people who may feel displaced when they first come to campus, must be a priority in the future of higher education in America,” Trachtenberg said.

Trachtenberg said his university is committed to work with HACU to conduct research on how to improve educational opportunities in higher education for Latinos and other minorities. “Your success is our success, and we are pleased to be able to continue our partnership with you,” he said.

Mary Cothran, Director of Multi-Ethnic Student Education at the University of Maryland at College Park, decried the “recalcitrant nature of bigotry and prejudice in our society.”

Value of diversity

The corporate community has long considered diversity a priority in building a diverse, talented work force for a global economy, said Roderick Gillum, General Motors Corporation Vice President of Public Policy and Diversity Initiatives. “From a business standpoint, diversity is a value.”

General Motors played a key role in rallying the support of Corporate America in defense of diversity in admissions policies at the University of Michigan in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases of 2003.

“General Motors has been very consistent in its support of affirmative action over the years,” said Gillum, who also serves as Chair of the General Motors Foundation.

Mary Futrell, Dean of the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at the George Washington University, said the higher education community can use this year’s celebrations of the 57th anniversary of Mendez v. Westminster and the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education as a springboard for new commitments to achieving diversity.

Mendez v. Westminster was handed down by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, ending segregation in the public schools in California. The Brown v. Board of Education case, which was decided in 1954 to end segregation of African American students attending public school, had basically the same mission: to ensure equal educational opportunities for all children regardless of race, ethnicity, language or class, Futrell said.

Futrell, former president of the National Education Association, praised HACU for “providing courageous leadership by making the issue of diversity a priority not only within your universities, but also within our nation.”

Today’s schools are more diverse than ever before, Futrell said. “However, today and for the foreseeable future, the issue of class, rather than race, may be a more defining factor in determining access to education, the quality of education children in America receive, and how we address the issue of diversity,” she said.

Twenty-five percent of America’s children come from families living in poverty, she said. “The vast majority of those children are from African American and Hispanic families who live in the nation’s 25 largest cities, cities where the schools are almost as segregated today as they were six decades ago. Residential segregation has succeeded in keeping most of the nation’s largest school districts from becoming desegregated, much less integrated,” Futrell said.

The higher education community must form strong partnerships with public schools and community organizations to ensure that its future students receive an equitable, high quality and safe education before they reach college-age.

“We have and must continue to enhance quality educational opportunities for America’s children and adults regardless of their race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, gender or age,” Futrell said.

Marisa Demeo, the nationally acclaimed Regional Counsel in Washington, D.C., for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), said rising tuition rates also have a discriminatory effect because of the disproportionately high rate of poverty among Hispanics and other minority groups.

“Higher education funding is extremely precarious in this country,” Yudof of the University of Texas System said. Yudof said a better system would peg tuition rates to income levels. Awarding federal Pell Grants as early as the 11th grade and simplifying the application process would encourage more students to believe that college is possible, he said.

Praise for HACU

Yudof praised organizations such as HACU that are actively promoting and defending diversity on campuses and in communities. “It’s organizations like this that give me hope,” he said.

Marta Brito Perez, Associate Director for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), told the Summit her agency has made it a priority to boost Hispanic representation in the federal workforce through aggressive outreach and recruiting efforts, including the agency’s highly successful www.USAJobs.opm.gov website.

"OPM is actively engaged in the recruitment and retention of a younger and more diverse workforce in alignment with the President's Management Agenda. This Summit has gathered leaders of key organizations and educational institutions committed to seeing the same reality come to pass,” said Perez, who is Associate Director for the OPM division for Human Capital Leadership and Merit System Accountability.