Thread: Rodeo rejects mediation request over minorities

May 21, 2008, 11:43PM
Rodeo rejects mediation request over minorities
The groups' issues are groundless, official says


By BILL MURPHY
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

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The Houston rodeo has rejected a U.S. Justice Department offer to mediate disputes with minority groups who say it needs more minorities in high-ranking positions, doesn't give scholarships to noncitizens in the country legally and has stopped featuring Tejano performers on its main stages.

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo does not believe mediation is needed because it promotes diversity and does not engage in discrimination, said chief operating officer Leroy Shafer.

"At this point, we see no need to have a Justice Department mediator involved in this," he said. "We've heard (the minority groups') issues. We think they are all pointless."

Johnny Mata is spokesman for a group that has sought mediation, the Houston chapter of American GI Forum, a nonprofit that addresses Hispanic veterans' needs. Mata said he was disappointed in the rodeo's position.

"I am a firm believer in coming to the table and airing out our differences," said Mata, former director of the local chapter of League of United Latin American Citizens. "It's a sad day for the relationship between the people of color and the rodeo. I hope they reconsider."

The Justice Department's division of community relations service agreed to ask the rodeo whether it would enter mediation at the request of a number of politicians and groups, including state Sen. Mario Gallegos and the local chapters of LULAC and American GI Forum.


Boycott was urged
The officials and groups sought mediation after some of them protested the rodeo's decision not to include Tejano groups on main venues at this year's show. The groups also urged Hispanics to boycott the rodeo.

Justo Garcia, a conciliation specialist in the division that has been working to settle minority-related disputes since 1964, said he met with rodeo officials about a month ago and would be meeting with minority leaders again.

The Justice Department has not launched an investigation of the rodeo, but is merely seeking to mediate the dispute.

If the rodeo and minority groups agreed, a nonbinding memorandum of understanding could be reached through mediation. It would lay out goals that the rodeo would try to attain.

Francisco Rodriguez III, director of the local LULAC chapter, said, "We are concerned that it's a good ol' boy system. We'd like to see some other people besides Anglos administer the program. We understand they originated the rodeo. But times change. It's not an exclusive club anymore."

The rodeo's 16-member executive committee has no women or minorities, Shafer said.

Of the 17 committees that control many aspects of the rodeo, 14 are headed by Anglo men.

A woman, a Hispanic man and an African-American man head the other three, Shafer said.

Of the 324 voting members of the rodeo board, 34 are women.

Shafer said he doesn't know how many minorities serve on the board because the rodeo doesn't track members' ethnicities.

The rodeo, he said, successfully has boosted the number of minorities who serve as volunteers during the past 25 years.

But volunteers are promoted in part based on years of service and donations, he said. Executive committee members have put in 37 years of volunteering, on average, he said.

Many minorities and women, meanwhile, are rising through the ranks, he said.

"It would not be fair to people out here to have a quota system," he said. "It's just like you don't go to work for Exxon and say you want to be the president the next day. You've got to work your way up there."


Got a late start

Mata said minorities can't match Anglos' length of service because they didn't feel welcome at the rodeo years ago, and the rodeo should develop a process that would infuse more minorities into higher ranking posts.

Shafer defended the rodeo's practice of excluding noncitizens in the country legally from scholarship awards, a policy set by the executive committee. The rodeo, he said, receives a glut of scholarship applications.

"We want our scholarships going to people who are citizens of the U.S.," he said.

Rodriguez said he wishes the rodeo was open to discussing whether scholarships should be granted to children of legal immigrants who do well in school and need help going to college, especially if the students intend to become citizens.

Shafer said a high percentage of rodeo scholarships go to minorities. Nearly a third of the 927 students who attended Texas universities on show scholarships last year were Hispanic, show organizers said.

Mata said Tejano performers didn't perform on the main venues at this year's rodeo.

"When you are deprived of other people's cultures, you are locked in a vacuum," he said.

Shafer said the rodeo stopped featuring Tejano music on main stages because "Tejano music is not selling. Everybody knows that except the Tejano artists producing it and a few activists."










http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 95635.html

Here they go again , one more example of them wanting to make it
Mexico