Affirmative Action

Re N.M. Senozan’s April 6 letter: Senozan states that affirmative action has no place in the admissions policies of graduate and professional schools. He has a right to his retrogressive opinion, but he is wrong. As a college counselor with years of experience I can say that I advised many students who were failing to perform or excel academically because of reasons other than the ones cited by Senozan.

Universities recognize this fact of academic life and allow for students to withdraw from classes for extenuating circumstances. That is to say, factors or circumstances beyond the student’s control. Just what circumstances or factors are acceptable is determined by a given professor or departmental policy.

It is precisely because of educators like Senozan that countervailing policies like affirmative action and educational equity are needed in the admissions policies of all American institutions of higher education--if America is to live up to its ideal of providing equal opportunity to all of its citizens.

FRANK S. LECHUGA

Alhambra

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Senozan asserts that affirmative action has no place in the admission policies of graduate and professionals school because “failure to excel in college results from either a lack of effort or lack of intelligence,” while affirmative action “promotes mediocrity” in its beneficiaries. He asserts that any inequities experienced by individuals should surely be compensated for by the college years. How naive. How can Latinos and other groups hope to compensate for a lifetime of substandard education in four years of college? In reviewing the recently released CLAS results, it is obvious that students in Latino and African American neighborhoods do not perform as well as students in other areas of L.A. County. Is it because they are all stupid and lazy? No way. I am an intern in an excellent internal medicine program with only four Latinos in my year and just as many African Americans in all three years of the program. In a diverse state like California, are there so few African Americans and Latinos because we don’t make good internists? Hardly.

Senozan’s ideas reflect the mistaken idea that intelligent people can overcome any barrier they face regardless of background and life experiences. Such comments only serve to diminish self-esteem and perpetuate racism.

MICHAEL ROYBAL MD

San Francisco