College Officials in the Hot Seat

Even before anyone testified Wednesday, it was clear that Assemblyman Bernie Richter (R-Chico) wanted his “investigative” hearing on race and gender preferences to be unlike any other.

For starters, the first witness, Cal State Northridge President Blenda J. Wilson, was sworn to tell the truth--a formality rarely employed in legislative hearings. Then, in a stunning departure from the norm, Wilson was asked whether she was on drugs.

“Are you under the influence of any drugs or medication that would affect your testimony today?” asked Robert J. Corry, the counsel to Richter’s budget subcommittee on education finance. Later, Corry would pose the same question to Thomas Nussbaum, the newly appointed chancellor of the California Community College system.

Thus began a seven-hour hearing--the first of three Richter has scheduled over the next week--that at times seemed designed less to gather information than to provide a timely platform for Richter’s beliefs. Few think the timing of the hearings is a coincidence: just weeks before voters will consider Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action initiative that counts Richter among its most fervent backers.

Richter said the hearing was necessary to get “the truth,” and said he put witnesses under oath to prevent any “double talk.” Accusing higher education officials of trying to avoid a frank discussion of affirmative action, he promised to reveal “prima facie evidence that our institutions of higher learning have been pursuing policies that are clearly discriminatory.”

But much of the day was devoted to line-by-line analyses of documents, several of them outdated, that described university programs or policies with which Richter takes issue. Repeatedly, Richter and Corry, a conservative attorney who made his name with the Pacific Legal Foundation, asked witnesses to explain the rationale behind programs that they had not designed, documents they had not written and state laws that they had no role in passing.

Wilson, for example, was asked to defend a job posting, which sought minority faculty members, that appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 1989--years before she became president of Cal State Northridge. She was also questioned extensively about a scholarship program that has already been revised so as not to prohibit non-minorities from applying.

Adding to the hearing’s prosecutorial tone, Richter reminded witnesses that a court reporter was present and that they testified under penalty of perjury. Corry, in turn, referred to the table at which witnesses sat as “the stand.”

Wilson--who remained polite throughout her nearly three-hour grilling--described the proceeding as “strange. . . . The manner of the hearing suggests that what the CSU is doing is somehow contrary to a law that exists in the mind of the assemblyman. It was not to seek information about a significant issue for public policy dialogue. The conclusion of the assemblyman had already been determined.”

Wednesday was not the first time that Richter has held hearings on these issues. He covered much of the same ground in the spring, when one of his witnesses was Corry, who testified about a successful lawsuit he filed against San Bernardino Valley Community College alleging discrimination against a white woman barred from a class reserved for black students.

This time, Corry was in the inquisitor’s chair, having been appointed committee counsel last week. And he clearly relished the job. After Wilson explained that she believes that diversity--among both faculty and students--is an essential part of a quality college education, Corry asked her to outline the benefits.

“I believe education is a social investment responsible for preserving a democratic society,” Wilson said. “It is beyond question that if our graduates can’t get along with people unlike themselves, we will train people who cannot lead effectively. And that would be a wasted investment and a stupid thing to do.”

“Are there any university programs designed to increase intellectual diversity?” Corry asked.

When Wilson appeared unsure of his meaning, Richter jumped in: “He means, do you have a program to encourage young conservative students?. . . . I get complaints from people who say this particular group is underrepresented.”

Corry, who at one point described himself as “one of the whiter people in the room,” also asked several witnesses to speculate about how a “reasonable white male student” would respond to a particular policy.

Shortly after lunch, Richter tried to get Mary Sosa, Cal State Northridge’s contract administrator, to say that the state’s minority business enterprise law was, in effect, a quota. The law requires state institutions to award not less than 15% of their contracts to minority-owned businesses, not less than 5% to women-owned businesses and not less than 3% to firms owned by disabled veterans.

“Wouldn’t you agree, in terms of your understanding of our mother tongue . . . that this is a quota?” Richter asked. When Sosa demurred, he pressed her several times to give her opinion of whether the average Californian would be happy to know that the law sometimes results in contracts being awarded to companies whose bids are not the lowest.

“I don’t see how my personal opinion relates to why I was called here,” Sosa said.

“It relates because I’m interested in it,” snapped Richter.

“If you want, we can step out and talk about it,” Sosa replied, apparently referring to the hallway. Richter moved on.

Richter and Corry were notably more friendly toward Janine Jacinto, a white Sacramento State student who successfully sued the institution for denying her entrance to a graduate social work program that awarded extra points to minority applicants. Jacinto testified that professors had urged her to apply to the program as a Hispanic, even though she is not.

“I want to tell you how angry this makes me,” Richter said of her testimony.

Neither he nor Corry asked Jacinto whether she was under the influence of drugs.

Times staff writer Carl Ingram contributed to this report.