Romer and Michigan

[Janet C. Alexander]

At 06:09 AM 11/10/2006, Rick Duncan wrote:

>My mother has a 5th grade education and grew up on welfare in a 
>single-parent family. My father barely got through high school, fought for 
>his country (he was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked) and worked in 
>construction his entire working life. . . . Even after getting admitted to 
>Cornell Law School and making law review, I had to endure the stigma of 
>being denied scholarship opportunities--as I recall,one full scholarship 
>was awarded to a classmate, a racial minority, who came from a home in 
>which both his mother and father were medical doctors--solely on the basis 
>of my "privileged" racial heritage. . . .
>
>I got a great education at Cornell and have done very well since; but I 
>still feel the stigma of being treated as a second class citizen by my law 
>shool on the basis of my race. I don't donate money to Cornell and I don't 
>attend class reunions. And it still hurts that I was denied an equal 
>opportunity by my law school "community."

I am still perplexed (as a child of white Appalachian parents who did not 
attend college and a father who landed in Normandy on D-Day, fought in the 
Battle of the Bulge and was called up again for the Korean War, whatever 
his service has to do with the issue) why Rick holds a grudge against a 
scholarship given to a member of a racial minority (and some alleged 
preference given to Steven Carter, who certainly never needed any 
preferential treatment to be at the head of the class) and not to all the 
preferences and scholarships given to children of alums and faculty, 
development prospects, geographic distributes, etc.  But I'm struck by his 
attitude toward the institution that gave him a "great" education.  I'm 
grateful to the colleges and universities that provided me -- at a price 
that, even discounting the generous need-based aid I received, did not come 
close to covering the full cost -- an education that allowed me to become a 
lawyer and later a professor and to earn a living and have a way of life 
beyond that of my parents.  I didn't do that by my own bootstraps.  (And by 
the way, the head of my department -- English -- refused to write letters 
of recommendation to graduate school for women students.  Shall I hate the 
men who received preferential opportunities?)
         Janet Alexander

Janet Cooper Alexander
Frederick I. Richman Professor of Law
Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, California 94305-8610
650.723.2892