BY JONATHAN RIFKIN
Staff Reporter
(5/18/99) A survey claiming that the university does not condone racial and sexual preferencing prompted 20 university professors to send a letter Friday disassociating themselves from its findings.
The survey, conducted by the Delaware Association of Scholars and published in February, stated that the faculty is "opposed to racial and sexual preferences in student admissions and faculty hiring."
According to DAS President Linda Gottfredson, racial preferencing is the setting of lower standards for different races.
The professor's letter, which was approved by all who signed it, stated that less than 20 percent of the faculty polled responded. The letter describes the survey as "decidedly unscholarly in design, execution and interpretation."
It refutes DAS's conclusion that "a large majority of the university faculty are opposed to racial and sexual preferencing in student admissions and faculty hiring."
On the same day, a similarly critical half-page open letter from the university's Commission to Promote Racial and Cultural Diversity was printed in The Review, calling DAS's claims "tactics that create a hostile climate on campus."
Gottfredson said her organization's purpose was to find out if racial preferencing takes place at the university and then to have a debate on whether it should exist.
"If preferencing does exist, then we need to discuss it," she said. "If it doesn't, we should debate that too, but we can't debate a policy or practice that we aren't sure exists."
The DAS survey was initiated after the faculty's union, the American Association of University Professors, argued in its monthly newsletter that "political necessity and democratic equality require the university to hire more black professors."
Furthermore, the AAUP recommended to the administration that, "if, after a job search has been completed, a department's first choice is not a minority, but one of the applicants on the short list is a minority, then the department should be encouraged to make a case to the dean for hiring both the first choice and the minority candidate."
Gottfredson, an education professor, said the AAUP was representing the faculty without knowing its stance on the issue, leading the DAS to conduct the survey to determine where the faculty actually stands on the issue.
"The AAUP usually surveys its members on what kind of benefits they will receive," Gottfredson said. "But they had never surveyed us on [advocating racial preferencing], yet its leaders who represent us were pushing for it."
In response, AAUP Delaware Chapter President Gerald Turkel re-affirmed his belief in President David P. Roselle's hopes of creating a friendly environment for minorities at the university.
"As far as I can tell, there is support from the faculty on our decisions," Turkel said. "We consult the faculty constantly through elected department representatives and steering committees when developing our policies."
Urban affairs and public policy professor Timothy Barnekov said although he thinks the university should take all possible steps to create an environment of diversity, he said he only wished to comment on fundamental weaknesses on which DAS's general statements were based.
"I just think [DAS] should not make statements on what the faculty believes," he said. "We don't know what the faculty believes. We aren't objecting to the survey being taken or the people who responded to the survey, just the survey's accuracy."
Gottfredson said she was adamant that the issue is not the validity of the survey, but whether racial preferencing is and should be taking place at the university. She said she felt obligated to defend DAS's findings.
"The questions we asked were identical to those asked in the Roper survey, done by our parent organization on racial preferencing," she said. "The results of the survey were almost identical to that of the Roper [survey] and at the moment, it's the best and only information we have to work with."
The question still remains as to whether the university actually practices racial preferencing, Gottfredson said.
Civil rights worker and education professor Jan Blits said the practice of racial preferencing is illegal under Delaware law.
He quoted the federal circuit court's ruling on the Pascadaway case, in which two teachers -- one black and one white -- were to be fired.
"Normally you would flip a coin," Blits said. "But in this case the white teacher was fired because the other teacher was a minority."
According to Blits, the case's ruling stated the goal of diversity may not trump the rights of citizens to be treated equally regardless of race.
Therefore, he said, the legal implications that accompany racial preferencing might cause reluctance from the administration on divulging clear information.
Roselle sent out a newsletter in the March 4 issue of the UpDate in response to a DAS inquiry on the issue of racial preferencing.
The letter, supported by the university's Commission to Promote Racial and Cultural Diversity, said employment practices had been found to comply with existing laws, and the university was supportive of a diverse community.
However, Gottfredson said Roselle never answered the question of whether there is racial preferencing at the university.