Feeling left out?

Asian-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and many other groups all qualify for minority status in this country.

However, if a student of such an ethnicity were to stroll into UK's Office of Minority Affairs for a scholarship application, the said student would be sent elsewhere.

According to name recognition, the student should have arrived at the right place. This office, though, is geared only to one segment of the minority population: black students. Other minorities must fend for themselves.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the University of Maryland would have to make the scholarships they had reserved for black students open to all minority groups on campus, including the Hispanic student who filed the lawsuit.

This example illustrates the problem affecting UK and the nation as a whole. Because of the ever-diversifying nature of the country we live in, more and more students qualify as minorities. This makes the concept of minority scholarships and minority affairs - which were originally set up to help black students integrate into a white-dominated system - seem more and more narrow.

So what is the solution? Eliminate scholarships for blacks and open them up to all minorities? That's not too feasible here, since UK is under a mandate by the state Council of Higher Education to have 6.2 percent black enrollment by 1996.

Is the solution creating scholarship opportunities for every minority group? If so, then you really open up a can of worms, because everybody from Italian-Americans to Native Americans to Non-Native Americans will claim to be some kind of minority and, therefore, deserve money.

Much like affirmative action, minority scholarships were created so that they would not be needed in the future. The idea is that once the system opens up, everyone will be able to compete on an equal footing.

We hope that happens sometime soon. If not, the current state of affairs will continue to be a state of unfairness.

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