Arizona State Denies FIRE's Segregation Charges, Despite Evidence
by Jim Brown
October 13, 2005
(AgapePress) - A campus watchdog group is disputing a claim by Arizona State University that it never offered two racially exclusive English classes. ASU has issued a statement claiming two freshman composition courses were never limited to Native American students, as one academic freedom and individual rights advocacy group had charged. The university's statement comes after the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) objected to a faculty website listing of the courses as "for Native Americans only." In response to the advocacy group's pressure, ASU has declared that the two English classes that were listed on its official site as restricted are in fact open to all students, and that this reflects the university's "long-standing practice" of enrolling students in the classes regardless of race.
However, FIRE president David French says the ASU officials who issued the statement are being less than honest. "Their allegation that the class had always been open to people of any race was pretty much disproved when we found that the class had been advertised as 'Native American only' from 1997 onwards," he contends.
"In other words," French says, "for the last eight years this class has been run as a Native American-only exercise. So the school's just simply not telling the truth when it says it was always open to people of all races."
The group's research of ASU's own website turned up a newsletter reporting that the so-called "Rainbow Sections" of English 101 and 102, taught by Professor G. Lynn Nelson, were specifically restricted to Native Americans as far back as 1997. And further research revealed that Professor Nelson's web pages also listed the courses as racially segregated in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, as well as 2005.
However, the university has removed all references to the racially exclusive freshman composition classes from its website, and ASU Provost Milton Glick has sent a letter to FIRE denying the classes were restricted and touting the school's "long-standing practice" of inclusiveness. French believes ASU's administration is in denial.
"This reminds me of the mindset of universities when they impose speech codes or when they kick Christian organizations off campus," FIRE's president says. "Universities seem to believe that the law doesn't apply to them because [supposedly] they have the best of intentions, and they've figured out the best way to address perceived historical injustice or inequities. And when they've decided to address those perceived injustices, the law simply is irrelevant."
French points out that this is not the first time FIRE has tangled with ASU over racially defined enrollment restrictions. In 2002, the activist organization succeeded in getting the university to drop a segregated history class. And now, the school's claims that enrollment in Professor Nelson's "Rainbow Sections" was never limited to Native American students strikes the civil rights watchdog group as particularly suspect.
"It is extremely difficult to believe that for eight years, ASU was unaware that the Rainbow Sections of its freshman composition classes were racially segregated," says FIRE's director of legal and public advocacy, Greg Lukianoff. If the school's officials cannot admit, even in the face of evidence, that the segregation ever happened, he wonders how anyone can be sure ASU understands why racially segregated classes are wrong.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
