Salon.com > Pamela Burdman

Beam me up (to Youngstown)!

Fri, 26 Jul 2002 00:56:00 +0000

Congress' near-unanimous vote Tuesday night to expel nine-term Ohio congressman and convicted felon James Traficant was hardly a surprise to television viewers around the country who had glimpsed his bizarre defense against ethics charges in the past two weeks.

His references to "gastric emissions" and "Playboy bunnies" undoubtedly produced as many guffaws as his feral hairpiece and "Beam me up!" remarks on the floor of Congress regularly do. But the antics couldn't convince House colleagues to buy Traficant's argument that his recent federal conviction on bribery, corruption and racketeering charges was pure payback for his outspoken -- and at times outrageous -- views.

If Traficant's tale played as comedy to much of its national audience, the story takes on tragic overtones from the perspective of many in his northeastern Ohio district, where his fall from folk hero to felon mirrors Youngstown's calamitous descent from Steeltown U.S.A. to Crimetown U.S.A.

Traficant, only the second representative to be formally expelled from Congress since the Civil War, will be sentenced to up to seven years by a federal judge next week. But only the history of the once coal-rich Mahoning Valley and its fading fortunes can explain why some pundits predict that the Democrat-turned-Independent could net 20-some percent of the vote this fall for his old seat -- even if he runs from prison, as he has vowed to do.

Diversity drama at the University of California

Mon, 24 Jun 2002 20:34:00 +0000

In the five years since the University of California regents banished affirmative action and implemented race-blind admissions policies, enrollment news has been fairly consistent: one headline after another documenting steep declines in diversity in the U.C. system, often with the spotlight on the flagship Berkeley campus.

The reversals began in 1997, when Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law revealed stunning news: a 65 percent decline in blacks, Latinos and Native Americans -- minority groups considered "underrepresented" at U.C. -- admitted under the new policy, and only one black student in its entering class. Then, a year later, despondent administrators announced the first freshmen admissions numbers under the race-blind regime: the proportion of so-called underrepresented minorities in the first group of freshmen admitted to Berkeley after the affirmative action ban had fallen by more than 50 percent.

Two months ago, much to the relief of university officials, the narrative changed. "Minority Levels Rebound at U.C.," wrote the Los Angeles Times. "Admission Up for Minorities in California," said the New York Times. "U. of California Admits More Minority Students," offered the Chronicle of Higher Education. For the first time in five years, the stories explained, the proportion of underrepresented minorities admitted to the U.C. system for the coming fall surpassed the pre-ban level of 18.8 percent, inching up to 19.1 percent.

A colorblind California?

Thu, 09 May 2002 20:22:00 +0000

Five years ago, University of California regent Ward Connerly proposed a novel reform to the controversial UC admissions system: anonymous applications, devoid of information about race or ethnicity, a move the diehard opponent of affirmative action hoped would eliminate admissions officers' temptation to consider such factors when deciding who attends the prestigious state system. But Connerly, the campaign chair of California's Proposition 209, the 1996 ballot measure banning racial preferences in state decision-making, was ignored by the UC administration.

Now Connerly is taking another shot at the same goal, with a proposed statewide ballot initiative to prevent California from collecting racial data in the first place. Dubbed the "Racial Privacy Initiative" by supporters, Connerly's proposal would eliminate the racial check boxes that Californians encounter on state government forms ranging from job applications and school enrollment papers to birth and death certificates.