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By Mike Cuenca | October 5, 2001
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As one of the obscenely few Kansas-born Hispanics to actually be
allowed to graduate from or teach at Kansas University, I am outraged
by the news that Chancellor Robert Hemenway intends to act as the grand
marshal for KU's first Hispanic Heritage parade.
According to the U.S. census, Hispanics are now Kansas' largest
minority group. Between 1990 and 2000, the percentage of Hispanics in
Kansas increased 3.2 percent. However, at KU, the number of male
Hispanic full-time faculty has actually decreased. The number of male
Hispanics in tenured positions decreased for the first time since 1992,
to its lowest level since 1992. In the six years of Hemenway's
leadership, the percentage of Hispanic students has increased only 0.2
of 1 percent.
In a state where the Hispanic population is 7 percent, only 2.3 percent
of KU's full-time faculty are Hispanic. Only 2.4 percent of the
university's students are Hispanic.
Think of this in terms of the Kansans who are being excluded from
opportunity at KU. If there was no discrimination on this campus and
the acceptance of Hispanics was allowed to approximate our state's
proportions, there would be approximately 50 more Hispanic academics
and nearly 600 more Hispanic students.
Don't be fooled by the public relations move of the appointment of Vice
Chancellor Janet Murguia. Murguia may well turn out to be an asset to
the university, but her appointment is an empty gesture that did not
increase the number of Hispanic faculty by even one person. She has
merely become another of the many token minorities in the Hemenway
administration who are in administrative positions with no real
authority to affect university policy.
In fact, in Murguia, KU now has an accomplished, nationally recognized
Hispanic woman who, by all rights, should be the university's primary
representative for a Hispanic Heritage Parade. Hemenway should have
insisted that this parade be Murguia's opportunity to begin to lead the
university's Hispanics. His appearance smacks of grandstanding. It's as
if he has suddenly realized that Hispanics are an important part of
this society and wants everybody to think he's thought so all along.
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Originally published by the Lawrence Journal-World.
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