Columnist Jon Ralston: Regents cover for a race-baiter

Friday, Dec. 13, 2002 | 5 a.m.

The Board of Regents may have voted to apologize for something that, as the resolution it passed meekly said, "might have occurred." The regents may have, as Chairman Doug Seastrand psychobabbled, been "looking for closure." But the serial incursions into student files by one regent, and the subsequent playing of the race card from the bottom of the deck, to pilfer Robert Shapiro's famous comment about the O.J. Simpson defense, cannot simply be shunted aside by a namby-pamby resolution.

I'm not sure what is more offensive -- the disgusting use of race as a political prophylactic to cover up an abuse of power, or the abuse of power itself. I know this, though: Both are more egregious than labeling an elected official an idiot in a newspaper column, which is what student Hubert Hensen called Howard for objecting to raising GPA admission standards in the university system.

Howard's reaction, which was to invade Hensen's privacy, is nothing short of unconscionable and frightening. She has variously justified her snooping by saying she wanted to see if he was in military school, to find out if he was a student at all, to discover if he was a member of a hate group and to protect herself because she feared for her safety.

All because Hensen had the temerity to call her an idiot in print. It now turns out Hensen was generous with his description. Her idiocy notwithstanding, Howard has proved herself to be a nasty race-baiter and an unrepentant, unapologetic tyrant.

(Even Mark Alden, recovering from prostate surgery, sent a statement apologizing for calling Howard an orangutan. Besides, anyone who knows Alden realizes he is clueless enough not to know the comment had racist overtones.)

Peeping Linda, who became Laryngitis Linda at the meeting, once said she feared Hensen's column might inflame racial tensions. But, ironically, it is Howard who has spent weeks stirring the race pot, and the black community willingly obliged by scurrying to defend someone whose actions are indefensible.

This is nothing new. The black community has rallied around other African-American, ethically challenged elected officials, too. The problem African-Americans have here and elsewhere is that they reflexively circle the wagons around even the worst of their members, when they should just throw them out to be shot -- and should join the firing squad.

Why aren't the black leaders here offended that their race is being used to defend this obscene conduct? But like Howard, they care not about facts, only about protecting one of their own.

Yes, racism in all its execrable forms -- latent and blatant -- is interwoven into the fabric of America and often tears it apart at the seams. Racism is all too prevalent here, a place once dubbed The Mississippi of the West. But this issue has nothing to do with race.

Thursday's meeting featured the cartoonish scene of community college Vice President Lonnie Wright assailing the board for not recognizing institutional racism. The concept of irony must have been lost on Wright, an African-American who somehow became a vice president despite the system's prejudice.

I wonder, though, what Linda Howard would do if one of her colleagues, after the meeting, requested Wright's personnel file to see if he really is qualified for the job. And, after all, Wright did all but call the board racist -- he might be dangerous, might have access to weapons. That's reason enough to check him out, right Peeping Linda?

Wright was part of a parade of Howard defenders who told the board to halt the discrimination against her and, as one put it, "stop the name-calling."

As if name-calling is more outrageous than invading someone's student file? Some speakers attacked the media as part of some conspiracy to discredit Howard -- another common diversionary tactic. Trust me -- Howard doesn't need the Fourth Estate's help. She is quite skilled at discrediting herself.

In fact, Howard, who has also tried to cut off funding to the UNLV student newspaper, once wondered whether Hensen should be allowed to write "that crap" in a newspaper. It doesn't surprise me Howard is not familiar with the First Amendment.

But perhaps she should know that newspapers print a lot of crap (no snide comments, please) and that's the beauty of unfettered free speech rights. You can't yell "fire" in a theater, but you can sure as hell call a regent a moron. Discourse can be unruly, ugly even. But sometimes polite conversation just won't achieve results; sometimes you have to be inflammatory to make a point.

This is not about black or white. But this is a black and white issue: An elected official, who appears to have a penchant for striking out against those who dare question her, invaded a student's privacy, clearly with malice aforethought. She should resign, her colleagues' quest for closure notwithstanding.

This is not a jaywalking violation (only in downtown Las Vegas is that a serious crime). This is an obvious abuse of power. And no amount of the posturing and preaching from so-called black leaders covering for someone solely because of her race, or a "let's put this behind us" resolution by regents fearful of more ridicule, can obscure the truth.