Inquisitors’ Minds Want to Know

If you happened to be inside the Burbank City Council chambers Wednesday morning and heard Assemblyman Bernie Richter assert that each and every witness at his committee hearing had been asked if they were under the influence of medication or drugs, I hereby testify that Richter is wrong.

I have seen the video. Janine Jacinto wasn’t asked that question.

But everybody makes mistakes. I made one just the other day. It wasn’t that I began a column by asking: “Is Bernie Richter on drugs?” He deserved that at least as much as Cal State Northridge President Blenda J. Wilson and other higher education officials deserved the same question and the Inquisition-like tone of Richter’s committee hearings on racial and gender preferences that began last week in Sacramento.

No, my mistake was giving Richter some bum information over the phone. He was complaining that the press had focused on him and not the injustice that befell Janine Jacinto. One reason, I suggested, was that this newspaper, at least, had already covered the Jacinto story.

Later I would discover that I had confused Janine Jacinto with Janice Camarena.

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Both women tell nightmarish tales of reverse discrimination. Richter’s right that Jacinto’s story is particularly compelling.

Jacinto is a single mother of four who graduated from Cal State Sacramento magna cum laude. She was stunned when she was rejected by the university’s master’s program. When Jacinto approached a professor, he suggested that she note on her application that she is Latino. Jacinto wouldn’t; her heritage is a mix of Swiss, Italian and Portuguese.

By a fluke, Jacinto learned that a fellow student had happened upon an interesting document: a weighted ratings system for applicants to the program she was trying to enter. Thirty-eight was the top score possible. Jacinto learned that her excellent grades were worth only three points. Minority applicants were in essence provided a five-point head start, and more if they spoke Spanish. Jacinto’s fluency in Italian was worth zero.

Jacinto sued. The first time university officials offered to settle, she testified, they offered money with the stipulation that she not discuss the case. Jacinto refused to be silent. In the end, she received a cash settlement that, under the terms of the agreement, she isn’t allowed to disclose. She was also granted the right to revise application guidelines to the graduate program.

When Janice Camarena Ingraham was called Wednesday to share her story, Richter’s committee didn’t neglect to ask the politically potent drug question. (When The Times first wrote of her allegations against San Bernardino Valley College in March 1995, she was identified as Camarena, the name of her late husband, who was Latino.)

The 26-year-old widow, accompanied by two of her three children, became tearful at times when she told of how instructors kept her from entering two English 101 courses because they were tailored, respectively, for African American and Latino students.

The classes were part of the Black Bridge program and the Puente Project, both of which are supposed to provide academic support and mentoring to help minority students move on to four-year schools.

Ingraham sued. She did not seek financial damages, but won changes in the course catalogs and other literature so that classes can no longer be described as being “designed” for black or Latino students, nor can the system assign mentors or counselors on the basis of race.

After Ingraham testified, another perspective was explored. Former San Bernardino Valley College President Donald L. Singer answered the committee’s questions.

After acknowledging that he takes medication to control his cholesterol level, Singer said the Bridge and Puente programs were never intended to be exclusionary. He vouched for the character of instructors and noted that, as the settlement states, the college admits no wrongdoing. (Singer has stated previously that the suit was settled only to save money.)

Unlike the disjointed video I watched the night before, the hearing Wednesday morning at least had some she-said, he-said coherence.

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This ambivalent white male finds it easy to believe that Ingraham was wronged. After testifying, she showed me transcripts of taped conversations she had with the teachers who wouldn’t let her enroll in the Bridge or Puente classes. It’s also easy to believe that the intent and guidelines of the Bridge and Puente programs could easily be misconstrued. The injustice in the Jacinto case is more starkly defined; the outcome of her lawsuit demonstrated as much.

Bernie Richter, a Republican from Chico, has good material to work with--material that has been overshadowed by his boorish behavior. In a way, it’s reminiscent of the David Duke controversy. The CSUN student government was accused of trying to smear Proposition 209 by inviting the ex-klan leader to debate affirmative action. If that was their intent, it backfired. Now Richter’s tactics seem intended to smear the likes of Blenda Wilson and other educators as evil forces of multicultural madness. It’s not for nothing he’s been called McCarthyesque.

Blenda Wilson had nothing to do with Jacinto or Ingraham, yet for three hours she was subjected to hostile, nitpicking and sometimes bizarre questions about the wordings on a variety of documents, including many that were out of date or reflections of state and federal statutes.

A number of examples could be cited. At one point, committee counsel Robert J. Corry focused on a seminar to help faculty cope with students who need remedial help. Such skills, Wilson had written, “are not imprinted in our genes.”

Corry seemed to read something sinister into the expression. He asked her to explain what she meant.

Wilson paused. “I think you’re taking this too seriously,” she said.

“So the ‘imprinted in our genes’ is merely a term of art?” Corry replied.

“You make too much of it,” she said reassuringly, “to concentrate on that phrase.”

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Please include a phone number.