By Richard Finegan, News Assistant
The Daily Texan
Friday, March 17, 1972

Approximately 200 students, their numbers swelling at times, held a march and rally on the Main Mall Thursday in support of a quota system for minority student recruitment at the University.

The rally, sponsored by TIME (The Improvement of Minority Education, Enrollment, Equality, etc.), began at 10 a.m. and tapered off in the early afternoon when its leaders urged participants to attend the afternoon session of the regents' meeting.

Mrs. Exalton Delco, member of the Austin Independent School District Board, told the group the University "is not taking full advantage of the 30 percent minorities in the state."

"The tax monies of all Texans built UT," she said, "and all ought to be involved."

Beatriz Gonzales, president of Mexican-American Youth Organization (MAYO), charged that "the Board of Regents does not want any more chicanos and black at the University."

Outlining chicano student demands concerning the Mexican-American studies program, Ms. Gonzales said, "As yet, we have no results."

Faculty members speaking at the rally included Dr. Alan Ross, associate professor of Slavic languages; Santo Reyes Jr., assistant professor of social work, and Dr. Americo Paredes, director of the Mexican-American studies program.

Refuting the argument that preferential treatment for minority students would lower the standards at the University, Ross noted that there is "cutthroat competition here" as in some universities and that standards are low already.

Chicanos and blacks, he said, are asking that they be lowered just "that much farther."

Paredes, who called himself the "lame duck director of the chicano studies program," spoke of a "brain drain" out of Texas of talented minority students who are going to out-of-state universities with minority recruitment programs.

Such programs work at Stanford, Harvard, Berkeley, and Yale, he said, and they have worked here in the past.

Shortly before noon, a march was organized with about 300 students proceeding from the mall, around Garrison Hall, Hogg Building and the Administration Building and around the West Mall.

Shouting "What do we want - quota. When do we want it - now," the marchers attracted hundreds of student onlookers during their 15 minute trek before returning to the Main Mall.

After the march, the group heard Ramsey Muniz, La Raza Unida gubernatorial candidate, blast the Board of Regents as "the guilt people who are upstairs."

"They will be tried and prosecuted for the injustices that they are doing to us right now," he said.

One of the best received speakers was Mrs. Tanganika Hill of the Community United Front (CUF).

Denying rumors that CUF collectors on campus were using breakfast program donations to "get high", Mrs. Hill pointed to the Angela Davis Free Clinic, a day care program and the breakfast program as projects funded by CUF collections.

Other speakers included Gonzalo Barrientos, and Darell Blakeway, Democratic candidates for State representative; Gastavo "Gus" Garcia, candidate for Austin School Board; a representative of Frances Farenthold, Democratic candidate for governor; Sam Biscoe, newly-elected president of the Student Bar Association and two representatives of MECHA, a Mexican-American student group, from the University at El Paso.