Neal charges medical school trying to keep blacks out

Scott Reeder

Thursday, April 1, 1999 | 10:33 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The dean of the University of Nevada Medical School traveled here Wednesday to be honored for his contributions, but in addition to the accolades, he received an earful of criticism.

In a ceremony usually full of pomp and void of debate, Dean Robert Daugherty was verbally assailed by Sen. Joel Neal, D-North Las Vegas, who says the school does not want to educate black students.

"They are trying to keep black folks out. It is as simple as that. Why are they trying to do this? I don't know. They just don't want black people," Neal said after the Senate adjourned.

Neal, who is black, said his daughter, Tania Edwards, was not accepted by the medical school six years ago. She now is attending a California medical school.

Daugherty said the university is earnestly trying to recruit qualified black applicants but it continues to be a struggle. In the past 20 years only about six blacks have graduated from Nevada's only medical school, he said.

Since 1988, 52 blacks have applied to the Nevada School of Medicine, and 10 were accepted. Only seven blacks enrolled, giving the program a 19 percent acceptance rate compared to a total acceptance rate of 29 percent, the school's records show.

The lack of black students reflects a broader societal problem, not deliberate discrimination on the part of the medical school, he said.

"We are sending people out into junior highs across the state. We want to get children interested in medical careers early," he said. At UNLV and the University of Nevada, Reno, there are fewer than 40 black undergraduate students majoring in a science program, he said.

Oftentimes when qualified black students apply, they receive competing offers from other medical schools, which offer them full scholarships, he said.