School Dispute Bares Conflict Over Posts for Blacks, Latinos

In the gray world of affirmative action, it didn’t seem like a big deal.

The Student Attendance and Adjustment Services branch of the Los Angeles School District, which deals with children who have personal or social problems, had a low-level opening for a supervisor.

All but one of the branch’s 14 supervisors were black or Anglo, so it seemed logical that the opening would go to a Latino.

Hector Madrigal, a 35-year-old counselor, was named acting coordinator of student discipline proceedings in October. But a number of the branch’s counselors were upset with the tentative promotion, because Madrigal was a relative newcomer to the district, with only five years service.

“It appears that the (attendance-counseling) branch has its own Dan Quayle,” one counselor wrote sarcastically in an anonymous letter to the counselors’ professional association, which represents about 200 employees. Then the writer took note of Madrigal’s race. “Where,” he asked, “does one try on the magic glass huaraches (sandals) to be invited to the ball?”

The association published the letter in its monthly membership flyer in November and all hell broke loose. Latinos in the attendance-counseling branch, noting that the professional association’s board of directors has a majority of blacks and no Latinos, called the letter an insensitive racist slur and demanded an apology.

Technically, the furor ended last month when the school board made Madrigal’s promotion permanent and chastised the counselors’ association for publishing the letter.

But vibrations are still being felt in informal conversations in many corners of the school district. A nerve in the delicate body of interracial coexistence has been pricked, and some feelings that had been muted are out in the open.

Unfairness Seen

To some blacks in the attendance-counseling branch, who have complained in the past about inconsistent personnel policies, Madrigal’s promotion reinforced suspicion that Latinos may be receiving unfair promotional benefits, simply because they now make up the majority of the children enrolled in Los Angeles city schools.

To some Latinos, the criticism of Madrigal’s promotion, which came primarily from black counselors, reinforced suspicion that blacks are reluctant to extend the fruits of affirmative action to other races.

These concerns have important work-place implications in the changing ethnic melange that is Southern California. The Madrigal case illustrated a dilemma that is occurring with increasing frequency: When affirmative-action promotion decisions are made, how does society balance the demands of blacks, who have been the earliest beneficiaries of affirmative-action programs, against the emerging demands of Latinos, who have made less progress in job advancement and appear to be the most in need of remedial advancement because of their swelling numbers?

The question surfaced last summer in Los Angeles County government when, over the protests of black employees, the Board of Supervisors endorsed a controversial study showing that the county has failed to meet its affirmative-action goals in hiring and promoting Latinos in the 70,000-member county government work force. Blacks contended the report inflated the numbers of Latinos in the county.

Latinos make up 35% of the county’s population, but only 18% of the jobs in county government. Blacks, by contrast, make up 11% of the population and hold 30% of the county government jobs--the majority of them maintenance and service positions.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, where 57% of the pupils are Latino, Latinos hold only 10% of the district jobs requiring teaching credentials--including attendance counseling--and about 44% of the non-teaching jobs.

This type of statistical disparity puts increasing pressure on government affirmative-action programs, which were created primarily to compensate for past discrimination against blacks and did not anticipate the huge wave of Latino migration that has occurred here in the last two decades.

“Initially what most people thought about affirmative action was minorities and Caucasians being in competition,” said Janeth Smith, chief of human resources and benefits for the city of Los Angeles. “Now what we’re seeing is different minorities in competition.”

In the school district’s attendance-counseling branch, these abstract concerns became uncomfortably real.

“There is a vast chasm over how affirmative action should be carried out,” said Dr. Donald Martin, a veteran black school district attendance counselor, who characterized Madrigal’s defenders as “opportunists”--people willing to invoke the sheer weight of Los Angeles’ Latino population to justify unfair promotions.

“That flyer has opened up Pandora’s box,” said Gloria Chavez, president of the City Terrace Community Council, an East Los Angeles neighborhood organization that bitterly complained to school officials after the letter about Madrigal was published, and sent members to a Board of Education meeting to demand that his promotion be made permanent.

Chavez said members of her group were angered that they had to expend effort to add a Latino to the district’s supervisorial ranks, when the need for more Latinos--particularly bilingual ones, like Madrigal--is so obvious.

“The only time anybody pays attention to us is when they see a lot of gang killings,” she said. “This is going to be a beginning. We want a piece of the pie. There are a heck of a lot of us out there.”

Author Unknown

Blacks make up about 35% of the attendance-counseling branch in the district, outnumbering Latinos about 3 to 1. When the letter about Madrigal was published, Latinos automatically believed that a black counselor had written it.

In fact, leaders of the counselors’ association said later, the author was a Latino, who remains anonymous. The association’s leaders said the writer believed that Madrigal was unfairly promoted, thanks to a “buddy” system.

Their explanation did nothing to stifle criticism.

“The language was racist, and what makes it worse is that (it) was printed by a group that represents counselors who work predominantly with minority kids,” said Mary Montes, education chairwoman of the City Terrace group and, herself, a former school attendance counselor. “They’re supposed to help those kids with adjustment problems. If they themselves are having trouble dealing with other cultures, how are they going to help us with our kids?”

In interviews, both sides tried to play down the racial implications of the Madrigal case.

“Ethnicity doesn’t matter, said Carlos Barron, director of the school district’s Mexican-American Education Commission, which hears student discrimination complaints and functions as an advocacy unit. “It’s a bread-and-butter issue.”

“Our fight isn’t with the Hispanics,” said Martin, emphasizing that his opposition to Madrigal’s promotion was based entirely on credentials. “Our fight is with a sophisticated group that won’t give up one iota . . . The Anglo population has a pie, and they’ll split it in half, and what’s left to dribble down has to be divided between African-Americans, Latinos and Asians, and nobody’s going to give up anything.”

Still, the conversation inevitably puts blacks in the awkward position of an entrenched group worried about losing ground in the work place as the city’s Latino population surges.

‘Perceptions Not Healthy’

“These perceptions are not healthy for the entire community,” county Supervisor Ed Edelman told a public hearing last year on the county report urging more Latino hiring.

Martin, who has spent more than 25 years in the district as a teacher and counselor and prides himself as an independent thinker, suggested that when race does enter into affirmative-action decisions, Latinos should not receive the same preferences as blacks, because blacks have suffered more severe discrimination.

“Historically, persons of African descent were the only ones in this country who were enslaved,” he said.

“If the argument is that the majority of the district’s students are Hispanic, I’m beginning to say throw out the word ‘minority’ because the minority has become the majority,” Martin added. “How can one group with a small percentage in the work force achieve the same degree with (blacks), who have twice as many in the work force . . . unless you do something unfair?”

Those sentiments grate on many Latinos, who say they personify Los Angeles’ refusal to come to terms with its massive Latino population and its problems.

“Can’t you realize that, by giving Madrigal this position, he’s helping more kids, kids that you can’t reach, kids that you can’t relate to, not because you’re black but because you haven’t lived the experience?” Barron said in an interview. “Everybody talks about black role models. What about Latino role models?”

School Board member Leticia Quezada, who said she was “terribly upset” by the “highly unprofessional” publication of the letter criticizing Madrigal’s promotion, attributed the dissent to the school district’s lack of an up-to-date affirmative-action program. Too often, affirmative-action promotions are “a hit-and-miss effort,” she said.

Madrigal, too, said he felt his promotion had become ensnared in an ongoing argument about the fairness of district promotional processes.

“There is some friction” between blacks and Latinos, Madrigal said. “I don’t know if this situation has caused the friction, or if this situation is a manifestation of it.”