...Endangered

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Re: "Changing Times" by Laura E. Gomez, 27 January 1984.

Mr. Clarence A. Pendleton and the other Reagan appointees to the U.S. Civil Rights commission have said that affirmative action for minorities and women denies certain whites their constitutional rights. They also claim that it has caused a backlash of hostility.

Even if these claims are valid, they are not new, especially to Black Americans. They should come as no surprise to any American nor should they because for the cessation of this long overdue remedy. Privilege (illgotten or otherwise) is seldom relinquished without strife.

Those persons who sought to abolish slavery were told that to do so would wrongfully deprive the slave holders of their constitutional right to own property. Furthermore, they were warned that abolition would provoke unprecedented hostility toward the freed slaves and their supporters.

A century later similar counsel was offered to Dr, Martin Luther King during his attempts to end racial segregation, the "constitutional" rights then were States' Rights and the "freedom to associate."

Some would argue that affirmative action is different from slavery and segregation because the issue now is being qualified to do a job. Again let us recall that distinguished scholars amassed substantial evidence which supposedly demonstrated that slaves were not "qualified" for freedom and, in the Fifties and Sixties, that Blacks were unready for social equality.

Surely we have learned something from the shameful and bloody opposition to Abolition and racial integration. David L. Evans   Senior Admissions officer