March 15, 1999
Letter to Editor of The State
Letter to Editor of The State
PO Box 8208
Alexandria, VA 22306-8208
March 15, 1999
Dear Editor:
Last month Senator Darrell Jackson introduced a bill, GB 508 in the South Carolina State Legislature which, if enacted as introduced will prohibit state funded scholarships to institutions that practice racial discrimination as well as prohibiting unaccredited institutions from receiving state funded scholarships. The school most affected by this change will be Bob Jones University (BJU) who prohibits interracial dating among it’s students and prohibits interracially married couples from attending the school together. If the bill passes, BJU students will lose scholarship money they currently receive in the form of LIFE scholarships. Jonathan Pait, spokesman for BJU, argued previously in The State that the only people this policy will hurt is the students, not the school, because parents will still send their children to BJU. Let’s set the record straight, the students are already being hurt by BJU’s shunning of accreditation, removing LIFE scholarships from the picture is minor when you look at the big picture. As a result of lack of accreditation, BJU students are ineligible for Pell grants, VA assistance, etc. Pait should not try to paint this bill as an attack on BJU students. BJU could open their students up to plenty of state and federal money by simply dropping the ban and seeking accreditation. Pait has intimated that the ban was not a big deal in a recent interview with National Public Radio to be aired this month. Since the ban is no big deal according to BJU, then it would equally be no big deal to repeal it. But, since BJU is unwilling to drop the ban because to them it truly IS a big deal, they should take responsibility for their students’ hardship with tuition, etc. instead of trying to blame taxpayers who don’t want to fund racist institutions. This whole affair is sad and would simply evaporate if BJU would acknowledge that their prohibition is not grounded in any Scripture and call it what it is, a desperate last resort attempt to cling to segregationist ideology. No one likes a closet racist. To color this any other way is a lie
Sincerely,
James A. Landrith, Jr.
Editor & Publisher,
The Multiracial Activist