Fund to stop basing scholarships on race

White student got in, then was denied after her race revealed

RICHMOND, Va. -- Race will not be used as a criterion for enrollment in more than two dozen urban journalism programs nationwide under settlement of a lawsuit filed for a white high school student who was rejected.

Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, which sponsors the programs -- including at Columbia College and Roosevelt University in Chicago -- and other principals agreed to the settlement in return for the Center for Individual Rights dropping the legal challenge, both parties said Wednesday.

The center filed the class-action lawsuit in September on behalf of Emily Smith, 16. She said she was accepted last spring to the Urban Journalism Workshop at Virginia Commonwealth University, but one week later was rejected after program sponsors learned she was white.

The settlement requires VCU and other programs sponsored by Dow Jones to select students ''without regard to race.'' The programs also agree to acknowledge they won't offer preferential treatment or discriminate against any student ''on the basis of race or ethnicity.''

Neither VCU, Dow Jones nor any of the principals admitted any wrongdoing. VCU agreed to pay $25,000 to Emily and her attorneys and admit her to the program next summer.

''We're very happy with it,'' said Emily's mother, Jane Smith. She added she had ''little concern'' about Emily's reception at VCU. Emily is a junior at Monacan High School in suburban Chesterfield County.

Since 1984, VCU's College of Mass Communications has conducted the two-week summer journalism program during which students attend classes, live on campus and produce a newspaper.

Pamela D. Lepley, a VCU spokeswoman, said the program would not change.

''The program will continue, and race-neutral criteria will be used by VCU in the selection of participants,'' said Ray Kozakewicz, spokesman for Media General Inc., which publishes the Richmond Times-Dispatch and is a sponsor of the VCU program.

While the programs in the past emphasized minority students, ''scores of non-minorities have participated in the high school workshops,'' a Dow Jones statement said.

AP