By: Joe Strupp Parents of a Virginia high school student are suing a college journalism workshop with ties to the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Dow Jones, claiming their daughter was excluded from the program because she is white.
The Times-Dispatch reported today that the federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S District Court in Richmond accuses the Virginia Commonwealth University/Times-Dispatch educational program of exclusion based on race.
Jane and Steven Smith, parents of 15-year-old Emily Smith, sued the sponsors of the Urban Journalism Workshop in a class-action complaint, the newspaper reported. They are represented by The Center for Individual Rights, a nonprofit law firm in Washington, D.C. that has led opposition to affirmative action, the Times-Dispatch reported.
The defendants in the case include VCU; Media General Inc., which owns the Times-Dispatch; the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, which helped subsidize the program; and eight individuals including Times-Dispatch publisher Thomas A. Silvestri.
"I have no comment because I have not seen the suit," Silvestri told the Times-Dispatch, which reported that a Dow Jones spokesman also declined comment.
The newspaper reports that Emily Smith applied to be in the program in March, and received approval via e-mail in April. "It said congratulations -- you have been selected," Jane Smith told the paper. "It said there would be a letter confirming that."
But days later, Emily Smith spoke to one of the program's organizers and was asked her race, the Times-Dispatch reports. The plaintiffs claim the offer was withdrawn when she was told Smith was white.
The Urban Journalism Workshop is a two-week summer program "to interest minority high school journalists in newspaper careers," the Times-Dispatch reported. It usually includes about a dozen students "of racial and ethnic minorities," the paper said.
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