NORTHRIDGE : Panel to Examine Affirmative Action

A forum examining issues surrounding affirmative action policy is scheduled for Monday at Cal State Northridge.

A multi-university panel will address common misperceptions about affirmative action objectives with CSUN students, faculty and staff members. The discussion will focus primarily on data recently released that supports a continuing need for affirmative action programs in schools and the workplace.

Participants will then explore the impacts that recent efforts to discontinue affirmative action have had on some ethnic groups in Los Angeles and the state.

“Some great progress has been made with affirmative action programs,” said panelist Shirley Hune, associate dean of graduate studies at UCLA. “But much remains to be done. Affirmative action has benefited mainly white women. We need to discuss how doors for other groups can be further opened.”

Hune said Monday’s meeting will mostly be an interactive session between faculty and students, sprinkled with data collected by some of the panelists.

“There’s so much misinformation out there,” she said. “A lot of judgments are formed strictly on anecdotal evidence. We want to get all the facts out before we pursue an in-depth discussion.

“If there is an alternative way to alleviate the persistent discrimination that still exists in our society, we’d like to find it.”

Topics to be explored Monday will include local and national findings on public and private sector employment participation rates for minorities and women.

Besides Hune, panelists include Louanne Kennedy, CSUN provost and vice president of academic affairs; Los Angeles Times staff writer Lynell George, and Dennis Falcon and Anoop Bhargza, research assistants for Claremont Colleges’ Tomas Rivera Center.

The meeting is scheduled from 2 to 4 p.m. in the University Student Union’s Thousand Oaks Room. For more information, call (818) 885-2130.