The New York Times went recruiting last month to the journalism school at Berkeley. A number of students showed up, Helen Vozenilek and Philip Dawdy among them. So far, so ordinary. But as the Daily Californian first reported, Vozenilek "said she was stopped at the beginning of the session and informed by the recruiter that the internship position was for "minorities only.'" And Dawdy, a white male, "was stopped in his tracks by the Times interviewer and told that the internship was not for whites." This set off a two-day e-mail firestorm on campus.
The upshot: Not a single Berkeley professor or administrator had a critical word to say on the record about racially exclusive hiring -- or about the Times. One professor did say, "We made mistakes by not informing students better about what recruiters were looking for." And Marcia Parker, director of student and career services at the J-school, had laughable advice for the white students. According to the Daily Californian, she said, "It is important that even non-eligible students go to the interviews and talk to the recruiters because the recruiters keep extensive files and refer to them later as job opportunities turn up."
Incidentally, what does the New York Times have to say about its apparently illegal practice of "minority candidates only" recruiting?