BRISTOL, R.I. (March 20) - On the sleepy coastal campus of Roger Williams University, a small liberal arts school unaccustomed to student activism, the College Republicans are reveling in the debate they've kicked up by offering a scholarship for whites only.
The $250 award - which required an essay on "why you are proud of your white heritage" and a recent picture to "confirm whiteness" - has invited the wrath of everyone from minority groups and school officials to the chairman of the Republican National Committee himself.
Jason Mattera, a junior who started the conservative campus group in his freshman year, said kindling debate over free speech and affirmative action was just what he wanted - and he promises more.
"We did our job," said Mattera, 20, of Brooklyn, N.Y. "This is what college is all about, challenging the status quo."
They did such a good job that school President Roy Nirschel, who has clashed with the group before, cut short a trip to Vietnam last month to begin what he called "a healing process" - including forming a commission on civil discourse.
The 35-member group first went toe-to-toe with university administration last year over a series of monthly newsletter articles accusing homosexuals of squelching free speech by pushing for hate-crimes legislation. The articles alleged that a well-known gay-rights group indoctrinates students into homosexual sex.
The administration froze the College Republicans' money for two days. Nirschel said in turn, he received threatening letters claiming he was suppressing the group.
Then another article critical of Kwanzaa, which celebrates the history and heritage of Africa, sparked a complaint by a multicultural student group.
Before the Student Senate had a chance to deal with that issue, the College Republicans came up with the whites-only scholarship.
The application for the $250 award required an essay on "why you are proud of your white heritage" and a recent picture to "confirm whiteness."
"Evidence of bleaching will disqualify applicants," read the application.
Mattera, who is of Puerto Rican descent, said the scholarship was a parody of minority scholarships. Mattera himself was awarded a $5,000 scholarship from the Hispanic College Fund, he said.
"Those who come from white (descent) are left to find scholarships on their own," Mattera said.
The whites-only scholarship generated national publicity, which angered university officials and many students who worried their school was being labeled as racist. Minorities make up less than 10 percent of the 3,400 full-time undergraduates.
Some minorities on campus, like Maria Ahmed, a 20-year-old junior from Providence, felt targeted.
For this, we've been waiting.
