Newsletter

April 2004

New Scholarship Created for Whites Only

A student
group at
Roger Williams University is
offering a new scholarship for which only white students are eligible,
a move
they say is designed to protest affirmative action.

The application
for the $250 award requires an essay on “why you are proud of your
white heritage” and a recent picture to “confirm whiteness.”

“Evidence of
bleaching will disqualify applicants,” says the application, issued by
the
university’s College Republicans.

Jason Mattera, 20,
who is president of the College Republicans, said the group is
parodying
minority scholarships.

“We think
that if you want to treat someone according to character and how well
they
achieve academically, then skin color shouldn’t really be an option,”
he
said. “Many people think that coming from a white background you’re
automatically privileged, you’re automatically rich and your parents
pay full
tuition. That’s just not the case.”

The stunt has
angered some at the university, but the administration is staying out
of the fray. The school’s provost said it is
a student group’s initiative and is not endorsed by Roger Williams.

Mattera, who is of
Puerto Rican descent, is himself a recipient of a $5,000 scholarship
open only
to a minority group.

“No matter
what my ethnicity is, I’m making a statement that scholarships should
be given
out based on merit and need,” Mattera told theProvidence
Journal.

His group took out
a full-page ad in last week’s issue of the university’s student
newspaper to
tout the scholarship, which was for $50 until two donors came forward
to add
$100 each during the weekend, Mattera said.

It’s not the
first
brush with controversy for the group. The school temporarily froze the
Republicans’ money in the fall during a fight over a series of articles
published in its monthly newsletter. One article alleged that a
gay-rights
group indoctrinates students into homosexual-sex.

From CNN website
Sunday, February 15, 2004
Newsletter, April 2004-Text