BSL rallies attention toward scholarship suit against U.

Members of the Black Student League held a small but what participants called "important" rally on College Green yesterday, trying to draw attention to a lawsuit against the University. The lawsuit, filed Monday in Common Pleas court and of which the BSL is a plantiff, claims the University does not provide enough Mayor's Scholarships to needy Philadelphia high schoolers. "The University says they are committed to diversity and pluralism -- where is that commitment?" BSL president Jessica Dixon said. Repeating a claim in the lawsuit brief, BSL members said the University has failed to make the community aware of the scholarships. "I am a Philadelphia Mayor's Scholar -- and [the scholarship] was not widely known," College freshman Vanessa Saunders said. "I want it to be better publicized." Saunders said she found out about the scholarship from her guidance counselor in high school and by a letter. Daniel McGinley, president of the Philadelphia Association of School Administrators Teamsters Local 502, also spoke at the rally and said he believes the University owes the scholarships to the city. "The ordinance isn't ambiguous to me," McGinley said. "There are a lot of hard working kids out there coming up every year who don't know about this scholarship." But President Sheldon Hackney said at a University Council meeting last month that he had met with Mayor Wilson Goode in June "to review our implementation of these scholarships, and both the University and the city agree that we are meeting our commitments." African American Association of Faculty, Staff and Administrators Tri-Chairperson James Gray said that he supports University groups keeping the scholarship issue public. AAA is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit. "We have begun to move forward," Gray said. "We are going to keep the heat on this issue since a lot of Philadelphians are feeling the heat of paying for their education."

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