Howard University

We have once again entered the college commencement season, which means we'll soon be reading about uplifting graduation speeches delivered by prominent Americans. Or at least by prominent liberal Americans. It's becoming increasingly apparent that conservative speakers aren't welcome on college and university campuses. Last month, in the span of a few days, student protests disrupted a presentation by Karl Rove at the University of Massachusetts and one by Rand Paul at Howard University.

We have once again entered the college commencement season, which means we'll soon be reading about uplifting graduation speeches delivered by prominent Americans. Or at least by prominent liberal Americans. It's becoming increasingly apparent that conservative speakers aren't welcome on college and university campuses. Last month, in the span of a few days, student protests disrupted a presentation by Karl Rove at the University of Massachusetts and one by Rand Paul at Howard University.

Franklyn G. Jenifer has written articles on diseases of the turnip and the effect of test results on minority college admissions. A plant-virologist-turned-academic-administrator, Jenifer began to attract national attention last spring, when he was named president of Howard, the nation's premier black university. He is no stranger to the place. Born and raised in Northeast Washington, Jenifer, 51, first applied to Howard in 1957, but was rejected because of his poor grades and test scores.

If you've ever taken birth control pills or used cortisone to alleviate arthritis pains, you're already familiar with his achievements. But the solutions Percy Julian discovered in the chemistry lab pale in comparison with those he had to devise for survival as a black man living in a segregated society. In a two-hour biography airing at 8 p.m. Tuesday, PBS' "Nova" explores the life of a "Forgotten Genius" who became a renowned research chemist and a lesser-known civil rights pioneer.

A legacy that took 126 years to build is crumbling before the nation's eyes. The reputation of Howard University as a historic and prestigious African American institution has been damaged by charges of run away anti-Semitism on campus. The origin of the controversy is not hate-ridden teaching in the classroom, but a guest campus speaker, Khallid Abdul Muhammad. What the Nation of Islam leader said last February has sparked a nationwide debate on freedom of speech and black-Jewish relations.

Howard University has sued the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. and asked a federal judge to stop this weekend's Division I-AA football playoffs because its team, with a 9-1 record, was excluded. The $9-million suit, which also names the Division I-AA selection committee, charges that the predominantly black school was denied a playoff bid "for unlawful and racially motivated reasons," even though it had a better record than any other team in the playoffs.

The Division I-AA college football playoffs will go on without Howard University today, although a federal judge said the school's $9-million lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. for racial discrimination has merit. U.S.

He's not a mad scientist. But as Dr. Michael Blakey opens scores of skeleton-filled drawers in his Howard University offices, you can be forgiven if thoughts of grade B horror films fill the air. Blakey acknowledges the evocation, and he smiles. He is not insulted by the connection because he knows his work is not only totally serious but historically and culturally important.

The former president of Howard University, one of the nation's foremost black colleges, warned his fellow higher education administrators Monday to prepare for a contentious debate over affirmative action that could split America "right down the middle." Speaking at the annual American Council on Education conference here, Franklyn G. Jenifer recalled the furor that erupted after Khallid Abdul Muhammad, a former aide to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, delivered an anti-Semitic speech at Howard University last spring.

Antoine M. Garibaldi, one of four candidates seeking the presidency at Cal State Northridge, offered few specific plans for the campus in a public forum Monday, focusing instead on his experience as an administrator at two of the nation's best-known black universities. Speaking before an audience of about 100, Garibaldi, provost and chief academic officer at Howard University in Washington, D.C., carefully sidestepped hot-button issues during a one-hour question-and-answer session.

INVITATIONS rained down on George Gershwin (1898-1937) throughout his short, extraordinary life. The festivities, taking off in the roaring '20s, didn't slow down after the Depression pulled the plug on the Jazz Age. The entertainment industry trundled on, and there were always parties in New York and L.A. for people like him.

Washington IT might be called the Bermuda Triangle of medical research: the intersection of genes, race and disease. Politically dangerous yet medically alluring, it is drawing into its center a growing number of scientists, backed by the federal government and now joined by a respected African American institution in the nation's capital. This summer, Howard University Medical School in Washington announced it will begin building a first-of-its-kind gene bank.

Every generation is vulnerable to imagining itself either uniquely blessed or uniquely cursed. And for an understandable reason. After all, it is simply human nature to attach more importance to the time in which one has been fated to live and die than to either the past or the remoter reaches of the future.

Vice President Al Gore capped a weeklong focus on his education agenda Friday as he explained why he thinks the federal government should spend more for public education. Addressing more than 1,500 boisterous college Democrats at the predominantly black Howard University, Gore renewed his pledge to make education his "No. 1 priority" as president if elected Nov. 7.

Antoine M. Garibaldi, one of four candidates seeking the presidency at Cal State Northridge, offered few specific plans for the campus in a public forum Monday, focusing instead on his experience as an administrator at two of the nation's best-known black universities. Speaking before an audience of about 100, Garibaldi, provost and chief academic officer at Howard University in Washington, D.C., carefully sidestepped hot-button issues during a one-hour question-and-answer session.

E.M. Cioran is the essential philosopher for the end, and the beginning, of the millennium. He was born in Romania in 1911, the son of a Romanian Orthodox priest, and his writing today remains a searing antidote to the delusional empirical optimism of the ordinary life. "My vision of the future is so exact," he wrote in 1973, "that if I had children, I should strangle them here and now."

Vice President Al Gore capped a weeklong focus on his education agenda Friday as he explained why he thinks the federal government should spend more for public education. Addressing more than 1,500 boisterous college Democrats at the predominantly black Howard University, Gore renewed his pledge to make education his "No. 1 priority" as president if elected Nov. 7.

Leo Miles, an NFL official for 22 years and former athletic director at Howard University, was named an NFL supervisor of officials.

The former president of Howard University, one of the nation's foremost black colleges, warned his fellow higher education administrators Monday to prepare for a contentious debate over affirmative action that could split America "right down the middle." Speaking at the annual American Council on Education conference here, Franklyn G. Jenifer recalled the furor that erupted after Khallid Abdul Muhammad, a former aide to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, delivered an anti-Semitic speech at Howard University last spring.

Regarding: "Saving Blue Book From Ultimate Snub," Jeannine Stein, Aug. 18: Apparently Ms. Allegra Yust has spent too many hours sipping tea in her mother's spacious, perfumed apartment. Is she really this naive, or was she, perhaps, abroad during the Los Angeles riots? Shame on The Times for not clearly explaining to the readers that the infamous "Blue Book" is code for racism. Less than 1% of the listings in this register are other than Anglo-Saxon. Any proceeds Ms. Yust accumulates should be spent on a trip to Howard University for a crash course in multiculturalism.