Waiving the price of tuition for Native Americans enrolling in the University of California (UC) system will open the flood gates for other California residents who are members of minority groups to request the same financial break, according to a conservative pastor.
“When you start down this road, there's no end to it,” said 412 Church Pastor Tim Thompson. “There may be historic wrongs but those wrongs weren't committed by any of us. What we're responsible for now are our own actions.”
Thompson is trying to make a difference in the type of education students in California receive by recruiting and supporting conservative Christian school board candidates who are campaigning for election in Temecula, Murrieta, Lake Elsinore, and Menifee.
"Where things are headed, college is just going to become high school part two," he said. "With the types of degrees people are getting, you can't even get a job with them. So, we're not producing somebody coming out of college who is desired in commerce and when you start to just hand it out for free, it does lose its value."
The UC Native American Opportunity Plan permits California undergraduate and graduate students who can establish that they are part of a Native American, American Indian, or Alaska Native tribe to receive tuition scholarships.
However, those in California who are members of non-federally recognized tribes may also be eligible through outside organizations.
"The University of California is committed to recognizing and acknowledging historical wrongs endured by Native Americans," UC President Michael Drake wrote in a letter to school chancellors. "I am proud of the efforts the University has made to support the Native American community, including the creation of the UC Native American Opportunity Plan, and appreciate our conversations to date on all the ways in which we can better support Native American students. I am hopeful that this new program will benefit our students and continue to position the University of California as the institution of choice for Native American students."
UC campuses include Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, and Santa Cruz. Some 295,000 students were enrolled last year.
“What somebody else did is not our responsibility,” Thompson told the Southern California Record. “We're responsible for ourselves. If we can't get that right. What are we doing…trying to dig up the past and be responsible for people's actions in the past, if we won't be responsible for our actions now?”
While Judicial Watch has sued the city of Ashville, North Carolina for offering city-funded scholarships and educator grants to minorities, Tom Fitton said Native American "tribes are political groups, which is an allegedly exempt category for discrimination of this sort."