Bill Gates, Wife Donate $1 billion to Finance Minority Scholarships

DAVE BIRKLAND
The Seattle Times
September 17, 1999

 SEATTLE -- With the goal of producing "a new generation of leaders," Bill and
 Melinda Gates are giving $1 billion to fund scholarships for minority college
 students.

 The amount, $50 million a year for 20 years, matches the largest charitable gift
 ever, the $1 billion donated to the United Nations by media mogul Ted Turner. The
 grant comes from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, created last month
 through a merger of the William H. Gates Foundation and Gates Learning
 Foundation.

 The grant will provide a minimum of 1,000 new students each year with any
 money that they need to pay for their education, beyond whatever other financial
 aid they have received.

 The program is a response to anti-affirmative-action measures such as last year's
 Initiative 200, which prohibits race-based admission policies at Washington state
 colleges and universities.

 ``The possibility to dream and to have a future and to have a horizon is absolutely
 so critical to a child, a young child,'' Melinda Gates said Thursday in announcing
 the program. ``And yet, as we look, there are many students, minority students,
 who don't have that horizon.''

 The message of this program, she added, is this: ``There is the opportunity to go
 to college.''

 William Gray III, the head of the United Negro College Fund, will help administer
 the program. Gray, a former congressman, is close to the White House,
 congressional leaders and civic activists.

 ``If we're going to prosper, this kind of involvement is absolutely critical,'' Gray said
 Thursday. The scholarships will provide ``building blocks for a new, better and
 more prosperous America that will be the global leader.''

 The Gates Millennium Scholars Program will target the fields of mathematics,
 science, education, library science and engineering, where minorities are
 ``severely under-represented,'' said Trevor Neilson, a spokesman for the Bill and
 Melinda Gates Foundation.

 ``Bill and Melinda are committed to using their wealth to improve people's lives,
 and they both feel education is the key to success,'' Neilson said. ``They think
 this is the right thing to do.''

 The first freshman class at the University of Washington since the passage of
 I-200 will have 40 percent fewer blacks, 30 percent fewer Hispanics and 20
 percent fewer Native Americans than the previous year. Final numbers might be
 lower because, historically, 4 to 5 percent of students who are accepted don't
 register for classes.

 UW President Richard McCormick on Thursday called the grant ``an extraordinary
 investment by Bill and Melinda Gates on behalf of equity and access in higher
 education.''

 As society moves away from affirmative action, he said, ``much remains to be
 done to ensure young men and women enjoy equal access. But this exceptional
 grant will contribute enormously to that goal.''

 McCormick said he never talked with the Gateses about their plan, although he
 did have informal conversations with Gates' father, William H. Gates, a UW
 regent, after the passage of I-200 about how the university could continue to
 attract minority students.

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Carl Gutiérrez-Jones
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
e-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu