Scholarly Debate

[November 22nd, 2006] Last week's "Illegal Scholar" cover story touched a nerve rubbed raw by the nation's ongoing debate over illegal immigration.

As of Tuesday, the piece about a Franklin High School senior and Reed College applicant who's in this country illegally had generated 45 comments on wweek.com.

"We should not reward lawbreakers, no matter how long they have gotten away with it and no matter how deep a hole they have dug themselves into," wrote "Tim," one of many apparently prompted to comment by conservative radio host Lars Larson's KXL show on the story last Wednesday.

Other readers wrote to WW saying the 17-year-old and his family should be deported immediately, that they should have applied for citizenship already, and that the boy does not deserve a slot at an American college, given his illegal status.

As for the story's protagonist, identified by WW only as Carlos, he was visiting Lewis & Clark College this week. (Dean of Admissions Mike Sexton says Carlos can apply there as an international student.)

The Mexican citizen says he knew many readers would argue that he's not entitled to a college education in this country because he does not have a visa to live in the United States. But if he's an uninvited resident of this country, so too were the Pilgrims, he said just days before Thanksgiving.

"If people want to start an argument with 'you're illegal, you're uninvited, you're a criminal,' I don't feel they have a right to be saying that," Carlos says. "If you get into that whole topic, you can just go on forever." An online discussion of the story at Reed prompted several students to sympathize with Carlos. Many voiced approval for Reed's policy of admitting the best applicants regardless of their immigration status.

"Can you imagine being in his shoes, and agreeing to be the subject of an article that you know will get a response like that?" asked one student on the online forum at LiveJournal.com. "That ought to say something about his strength of character."

Reed students haven't gone so far as to print "Admit Carlos" T-shirts, but they have joked about other means for supporting the high-school senior.

"Hey, is Reed, since it's a private institution, considered something like a corporation?" asked one student on the online forum. "In which case it would count as a person, and our school can marry him and he could get a green card."

"Sorry," another student responded. "I think Reed counts as a boy, and the voters have spoken."

Perhaps in response to the radio discussion of the story, Reed administrators received phone calls from at least two people claiming to be donors cutting off their support for the private college. The disaffected donors would not give their names, though, meaning they may have had no real affiliation with the college, says Mitchell Hartman, communications director at Reed.

One of the Reed trustees whom Larson suggested should be pressured is Tim Boyle, president and CEO of Columbia Sportswear.

Boyle was out of town last week when the show aired, but company spokesman John Fread says Boyle doesn't feel it's his role as a Reed trustee to discuss academic matters such as the college's admissions policies.

Meanwhile, efforts appear on track in the 2007 Legislature to introduce a bill that would open Oregon's public universities to undocumented immigrants such as Carlos who graduate from Oregon high schools.

State Rep.-elect Ben Cannon, a Democrat who represents Carlos' neighborhood near Franklin High in Southeast Portland, says he's received positive responses from WW readers who support his promise to introduce such legislation.

"They didn't come here by choice," Cannon says of the thousands of students like Carlos in Oregon. "They've been told to work hard.... To me, it seems grossly unfair to penalize these students."