Thursday, February 15, 2007


Dow Jones Fund Opens Journalism Programs to White Students After Lawsuit
By PETER SCHMIDT


The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund has agreed to cease operating summer
journalism programs solely for minority students in response to a
lawsuit filed by an advocacy group critical of affirmative action.

As part of a legal settlement announced on Wednesday, the fund, which
had been operating more than 20 programs for minority high-school
students in connection with colleges, agreed to open up the programs to
members of any racial or ethnic group and to rename the programs to drop
references to minority members.

The fund, a nonprofit organization affiliated with Dow Jones & Company,
publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has helped finance the programs
for four decades with the goal of inspiring minority students to pursue
careers in newspaper journalism.

Wednesday's settlement came in response to a federal lawsuit filed in
September by the Washington-based Center for Individual Rights (The
Chronicle, September 26, 2006). The lawsuit challenged a summer program
for minority student journalists operated by the newspaper fund,
Virginia Commonwealth University, and Media General Inc., publisher of
the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The suit alleged that the program's race-exclusive eligibility criteria
violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees
equal protection under the law, as well as various federal civil-rights
statutes, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which
prohibits racial and ethnic discrimination by educational institutions
that receive federal funds.

The plaintiff in the case was Emily Smith, a junior at Monacan High
School, in Virginia's Chesterfield County, who submitted an application
to participate in the Virginia Commonwealth summer program last March.
The complaint alleged that Virginia Commonwealth initially notified Ms.
Smith that she had been accepted for the workshop but then rescinded its
offer after one of its faculty members called Ms. Smith, asked her race,
and learned that she was white.

The lawsuit as filed had asked that Ms. Smith be awarded damages because
Virginia Commonwealth's actions wasted her time, caused her emotional
distress, and closed educational opportunities to her. As part of the
settlement, Virginia Commonwealth agreed to offer Ms. Smith admission to
its workshop for 2007 and agreed that, if she accepted, she would "not
be discriminated against on the basis of her race or because she filed
the lawsuit." The university does not have to financially compensate Ms.
Smith, but it must give the Center for Individual Rights $25,000 for its
legal fees.

'Open to All'

Among the other colleges involved in the race-exclusive Dow Jones
programs last summer were Florida A&M, Kent State, Marquette, Monmouth,
New York, San Francisco State, and Seattle Universities, and the
Universities of Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky, Miami, Missouri, and Texas
at El Paso.

In announcing the lawsuit settlement, Terence J. Pell, president of the
Center for Individual Rights, said, "Virginia Commonwealth University
deserves credit for taking the lead in promptly settling this case.
Today's settlement saves the taxpayers significant legal expense and
ensures that this summer's programs will be open to all, regardless of
race."

A spokeswoman for Virginia Commonwealth University, Pamela D. Lepley,
expressed confidence that her institution would be able to maintain
diversity in the summer program, given its location in Richmond, a city
with a large minority population. "We are already a very diverse
university," she said.

Officials of the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund could not be reached for
comment on Wednesday. The fund's guidelines for newspapers and colleges
involved in its summer workshops had previously said that "each
participant must be a minority (defined as U.S. citizens who are black,
Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, American Indian, or Alaskan
Native)."



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Lillie M. Fears, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Dept. of Journalism
Arkansas State University
POB 2733
State University, AR 72467
870.972.3210, office
870=972=3856, FAX
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Head, AEJMC MAC Division 2006-07