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To learn more about the case, that led to lawsuits of diversity camps. Go to Center for Individual Rights Web site.  

Journalism & Beyond's future uncertain beyond 2007

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The debate over affirmative action has raged in academia and in employment for years. It now threatens a journalist camp intended for students of color.

Journalism and Beyond, in its first year, is the brainchild of Mike Dorsher, a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. There is some question about whether there will be a year two.

Finding continuous funding is a problem, of course. But so is the question of whether race-based admissions are allowable even in college preparatory programs such as the journalism camp, Dorsher admitted at the program’s beginning on Sunday. Dorsher is a believer.

“Programs as this one gives students of color the opportunity to be exposed to the field of journalism”, said Dorsher.

And why is that important?

“There are fewer minorities in the field of journalism then there should be, because we are becoming such a diverse country and all ethnic groups need to be represented”, said Jack Kapher, an assistant professor at UW-Eau Claire who is also helping run the program. Not everyone agrees.

Organizations such as The Center for Individual Rights disagree. It filed a lawsuit against another similar program in early 2006. This involved a case of a 15-year-old girl denied admission into a journalist workshop at Virginia Commonwealth University because she wasn’t a person of color. The girl’s parents felt that she shouldn’t have been denied due to her race. Her mother enlisted the aid of the Center for Individual Rights. The case is still pending.

The lawsuit led to other suits against other camps that have race- based admission policies.

The loss of such programs would be a blow, Kapher and Dorsher believe. During the program, they spoke of the need for minority journalists to bring their skills to newsrooms so the stories of underrepresented communities might be told.

"The purpose of the camp is to give students an idea of what college is about and hands-on experience with journalism but will be useful to them whatever their field of study," said Dorsher.

Jenny You, a student at the camp, said she feels that the camp has given her the chance to explore all the different types of journalism.

“It’s free, and it’s given students of color an opportunity to get to know journalism …. Maybe often they don’t get a chance to talk about this stuff. But I think it’s really cool! ” said You. The newspaper industry has yet considered the absence of minority journalists to be a problem. The American Society of Newspaper Editors has made parity a goal, wanting newsroom employment to match population figures.

But the number of newspaper journalists in fact declined this year, according to an annual ASNE survey. It fell to 13.62%, down from 13.87% last year. The debate on affirmative action will continue to rage. Meanwhile, the numbers of minorities continue to rise.

It’s still unknown on what the courts will do to fix this ongoing disagreement.

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