Latin student groups assail University hiring performance (April 22, 1974)

Latin student groups assail University hiring performance

By David Liemer

April 22, 1974

Accion Puertorriquena and the Chicano Organization of Princeton have filed a complaint with the New York office of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), charging the university with a “lack of commitment” in hiring Puerto Rican and Chicano administrators and faculty and recruiting students from these minority groups.

While Provost Hackney, the university’s Affirmative Action officer, denied the charges yesterday, he admitted “we can make better efforts in the future.” He added that university’s new Affirmative Action plan, now being drafted, will “reflect our renewed commitment.”

The letter petitioned HEW to correct deficiencies in the present plan, and to determine whether “genuine, not contrived” efforts to utilize Latinos are being made in the new plan.

The letter also scores the university for not pursuing “active recruiting or advertising,” claiming as a result there are no Puerto Ricans or Chicanos on the administration or faculty.

“Each search for faculty and administration has been very wide and gone into non-traditional channels,” said Hackney, but “we don't have many opportunities. For the provisions they have in mind, there were no openings.”

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Continuous claim

“This is a claim that has been made to us continuously,” said Sonia Sotomayor ’76, co-chairman of Accion Puertorriquena. “But there were many openings when Bowen revamped the administration two years ago, and no genuine efforts to find Latinos were made then,” she charged.

“For the past four years we have continually approached the administration, but our attempts have gotten nowhere,” she added.

Sotomayor said a written complaint was sent to President Bowen last fall but that no answer or acknowledgment was received.

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“That puzzles me,” said Hackney. “President Bowen normally would send that to me, but I never saw a copy of it. Perhaps it didn't get there.”

Allowing for the possibility that the letter may have been lost in the mail, Sotomayor said she personally delivered a second one to Bowen's secretary three weeks ago.

“We have as yet not received any acknowledgement,” she added.

Bowen said yesterday he had received the letter and referred it to Dean Simmons for a response. He was not sure if he had seen the first letter.

Charges

The Latino groups’ charges include:

- Princeton’s present Affirmative Action plan does not include a break-down of positions available to Spanish-surnamed groups nor a timetable of goals, although these are present for other minority groups.

- Attempts to locate qualified Latinos have consisted solely of contacts with the Ford Foundation and one Chicano student, Larry R. Garcia ’73.

- The University has made no attempt to contact groups such as Aspira and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Office, which have lists of available professors and administrators in the New York-New Jersey area.

- No regular university course “even alludes to” Puerto Rican or Chicano culture, because of the lack of a qualified faculty member to teach it.

- Out of a large concentration of Latinos in the New York-New Jersey area, disproportionately few hold university staff positions (secretarial, janitorial, etc.)