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?You Can?t Do Those Things Anymore?

Angela Cela, a student from Guam (making her, in census terminology, a ?Pacific Islander?), has sued historically black Tennessee State University in Nashville for racial discrimination, claiming that she was denied a graduate student financial grant because she?s not black. (HatTip to reader Paul)

In February 2008, Harold Mitchell, head of the department of speech and audiology, told Cela she didn?t qualify for the grant because she wasn?t black, the complaint says. Cela told Mitchell that Pacific Islanders were represented even less than African-Americans in the field of speech pathology.

?Ms. Cela stated that she was advised by several of her professors that this entire situation could have been avoided had she announced that she was not white,? the suit says.

?Then and there Dr. Mitchell stated: ?Well, what do you expect? You are at an historically black university. You have to know the backdrop and understand our professors? point of view when they converse with white students.??

Hal Hardin, one of Ms. Cela?s attorneys and a former U.S. Attorney for Middle Tennessee, said ?You can?t do those things anymore?

Let?s hope he?s right.

Full post as published by Discriminations on February 20, 2009 (boomark / email).