Mississippi Segregation

Being a black man I never, ever imagined myself siding with the state of Mississippi in a segregation case. In the Jan. 29 Times, in the Nation in Brief column, I read that, according to the Bush Administration, Mississippi “perpetuates segregation by using the scores on the American College Testing Program as the basic admissions criterion.” What else should be used?

In 1971 I was a black, high school dropout from a Midwestern urban ghetto with a juvenile criminal record and a high school grade point average of about 1.25. My ACT scores got me enrolled in a major university. Why is the same system that provides equal opportunity in Wisconsin a denial of the same in the Deep South?

I am proud of my black heritage and my black brothers and sisters who strive to achieve. Yet I don’t want to be treated by a black doctor, defended by a black lawyer or drive a car designed by a black engineer who can’t pass the same tests that were a cinch to me in my dope-smoking hippie years.

What really confuses me is that this issue is being pursued so aggressively by President Bush. Isn’t this the same man who recently became the first President to successfully veto a civil rights bill? What should Mississippi do? Use a quota system?

RONALD PORTER

San Bernardino