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From: bvi@hpda.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: A Honky Speaks - (nf)
Message-ID: <408@hpda.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-Jun-83 14:44:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: hpda.408
Posted: Wed Jun  1 14:44:02 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Jun-83 16:05:34 EDT
References: ucbcad.630
Lines: 37

I'm probably in the minority in this, but yes, I think AA is working,
albeit very slowly.  It takes time for education to affect a whole
generation;  you can't take a kid in high school and say *zap* you're
now receiving equal education - the process must start much earlier,
before elementary school.

So what do I base my optimistic prognosis on?  Well, given that AA as
far as college admissions, bussing, etc., really got underway in the
late 60's and early 70's, the first batch of black kids who have had a
chance to get 'equal' education throughout elementary school, junior
high, high school, and college should be percolating out of the colleges
just about now.  And that exactly has been my experience.  As an undergraduate,
I attended an eastern Ivy League College, called X to protect the innocent,
and have returned every year for the past 5 years as a recruiter.

The pattern I had seen at X as an undergraduate, and for the first two
years as a recruiter, was that there were *no* blacks in engineering,
though there were some who interviewed for engineering positions.  The
next couple of years saw a couple of black engineers filtering through.
In all of these cases, though, it was pretty clear that relaxed standards
had been applied to them, to the point that, had they been *white*, I
would have rejected them without a second thought.

This past year, though, something changed, drastically.  I'm hoping
that the reason for the change is the percolating education effect, and
that it will continue.  Basically, both the number and the quality of
the black students interviewing for engineering positions took a really
phenomenal leap.  It was no longer a question of 'well, I guess AA says
we have to take this person', but 'wow! this person's going places! I
want her/him on my team!'   It was a phenomenon which was noticed by all
the recruiters, and was generally attributed to AA; as a matter of fact,
one of our recruiters, who had been pretty rabidly anti-AA, went so far
as to say that 'maybe this AA stuff is actually doing something'.
I don't know whether it is or not, but I'm daring to be hopeful.

Beatriz Infante, HP Engineering Productivity Division
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