KTLA News: "Press conference regarding racist and sexist hiring practices..." (1975)

[Man in center] My name is Humberto Bracho. I am an acting assistant professor... [Silence]. [Bracho] The administration and the University of California system is always complaining about not being able to find qualified minorities to full, fulfill the positions of...academic positions in the University. This, as we will see in my case, is not true. They never searched for my qualified minority applicants and when they have some around they actively block their chances to get hired in a...as a...in academic positions. [Man talking] This man has extensive experience both as a doctor and as a PhD. Has a wealth of publications. Is...as qualified in his field as anybody to be considered for associate professor position and not to be considered for an assistant professor position, not to be contacted for it though he works in the laboratory with the man who was the head of the search committee, not to have any of his professional references contacted, all of this in the face of UCLA affirmative action guidelines and the director of that, directive of then Vice Chancellor Saxon that the department must contact people in the non-tenure positions in the department to try to extend the pool of minority and women applicants. If that isn't racism, there isn't any racism... [Silence]. [Bracho] In the Biology Department at UCLA... ...racist and sexist hiring practices that UC, UCLA administration follows all the time. There are three cases in that respect in the last month... that followed that pattern. Once... ...ignored because they did not contact my references. I call my reference to see if they were contacted... [Reporter] Have you contacted them and asked them why you didn't get the job? [Bracho] The people in the... yes, I did and they say that they only took in consideration scientific qualifications that why I was not hired. But they did not... contact my references. They did not tell me...which is they had to follow the affirmative action guidelines and had to contact minority applicants that are in the same department. They did not do that. So I applied because I, I read the advertising in a journal. They didn't know... [Second man talking] Dr. Bracho has been a invaluable asset. To not only the minority students in tutoring and recruiting but he has also tutored and aided other non-minority students in the department. There are some non-minority students, right now, who are getting out petitions, that have taken biology courses from Dr. Bracho because they know that he is an excellent teacher, excellent researcher and, and, and excellent individual to be around. As far as the qualifications being a neurobiologist myself I think I'm in a position to evaluate and Dr. Bracho is at least if not more qualified than any of the candidates that were chosen for the... to give interviews and on the question of, of, if Dr. Bracho, they...what they wanted neuro-, a developmental neurobiologist for the position. However, that was the rationale that they gave at a later date. However, Hugh Bryant, one of the individuals that was chosen to speak is not a Developmental Neurobiologist and Dr. Bracho who is presently working on a developmental problem with the search committee chairman, who is the Chairman of the Neurobiology Department, so Dr. Bracho is qualified on all accounts as, for the position of neurobiologist. [Reporter] What do you plan on doing about it? [Man talking] A member of the Committee Against Racism and a friend of Dr. Bracho and uh... if you consider what it takes to be an assistant professor in the university, normally it's a person who's just gotten the PhD. Maybe one or two publications...that was my own position. Now one of the points about it is... ...was more blatant than this one, it is very, very doubtful. Not only is Dr.Hugh Bryant, who was one of the other candidates, indicated that he feels that this thing was very unfair. He was very, very surprised to find that Dr. Bracho had applied for the job. But I think nearly anyone who looks into the record seriously cannot but come to the conclusion that this is one of the most blatant cases of racial discrimination in recent history. [Reporter] So you're saying, I wonder if you can answer me towards the microphone so I could pick up... [Man talking] Overwhelmingly the most qualified applicant, both on academic grounds and secondly, by the way, not only was he very active in the minority committee at UCLA in the biology department, he coordinated California-wide tutoring for the MCAT examination, medical examination, for minority students for the National Medical Association. So if you want to take somebody who is genuinely concerned about seeing to it that uh... affirmative action programs and minority students, you know, get a fair chance against the general racism in the University as well as somebody who is generally concerned about jobs for faculty and so on and somebody who is very, very qualified... once again you could not find a more outstanding candidate than Dr. Bracho and just as a point about it, by the way, in a letter to the head of the Chicano Study Center after this issue was raised because the Chicano Studies Center had recommended Dr. Bracho, the head of the search committee, Dr. Grinnell, admitted that Dr. Bracho was a very qualified scientist. And there is no doubt in anybody's mind that Dr. Bracho is a very qualified scientist and the main thing that's going on here is they just hoped that they could, you know, sweep this case under the rug so that no one would pay attention to it. And the Committee Against Racism and many other people at UCLA and around Los Angeles are not prepared to let them do that. [Reporter] Dr. Bracho, was this professor who said... [Silence].