Minority

An Oxnard-based program that recruits minority foster and adoptive parents for minority children will close at the end of the month. Closure of the nonprofit Plaza Family Support Center will leave 13 Hispanic families, many of whom speak no English, without advocates in an adoption process that can prove daunting even for English-speaking families, said Geraldine Zapata, director of the Oxnard agency's parent organization in Los Angeles. "It's a terrible tragedy," she said.

The interview with entrepreneur Lionel Sosa regarding success in business for the Latino population and the deeply ingrained cultural barriers to success speak volumes not just to the population targeted in the interview, but to many communities in the U.S. that fall under the minority classification ["Latino Entrepreneur-Author Dares Others to Share Dream," April 15]. I am no Latino. Nonetheless, because of my racial makeup, I do fall under the often limiting category of minority.

Re "Fallout From UC Preferences Ban," June 28: I beg to differ with the comment, "Diversity, in and of itself, does not enrich education." In the early to mid-'70s I attended a small, prestigious liberal arts college in Southern California. There were very few blacks in my class, let alone the entire student body. Because I was the first black many of my classmates knew, I was asked, "Are blacks born black?" or "Why is your hair like that?" or, because I was fair, "Are either of your parents white?"

In "Letting Women Athletes Soar" (Commentary, June 23), Jackie Joyner-Kersee makes the typical argument in defense of Title IX: It was needed and it worked, so it will always be needed and will always work. She trivializes the fact that the women's Title IX enforcement brigade has forced the use of quotas through bullying litigation despite the fact that the law might provide for other ways to satisfy Title IX participation tests. In the face of litigation, college (and now high school)

The Aug. 29 story "Improving the PR Industry's Image on Hiring," by Bruce Horovitz, fell very much short of the mark. If the Los Angeles Times is to adequately report that "trade groups and others are doing something about jobs for minorities," should not Hispanics, Asians and native Americans, among others, also be included? That question may be shrugged off as purely rhetorical, so let's be pragmatic. If Hispanics are an unimportant segment of our minority community, then why is the Los Angeles Times allocating significant resources to Nuestro Tiempo?

Democracy as conventionally understood relies on decision by simple majority. Whichever side has more votes wins. Supermajority requirements stand this principle on its head. Whenever the side with the greater number of votes fails to reach the designated threshold, the side with the least votes prevails. The inevitable outcome is minority veto power. Though minorities cannot govern, supermajority requirements enable them to prevent majorities from governing as well. That is the primary structural source of our political gridlock at the federal and state levels.

During the course of recent public debate over the future of development and growth in Los Angeles, a new ideology has emerged that poses a dangerous threat to peace and harmony among our diverse ethnic and economic populations.

Baseball's winter meetings don't have much color. The halls of power, for the most part, remain basic white. "The last couple of years, baseball has gone back to business as usual," said Frank Robinson, who wasn't referring to trade talks or free-agent signings. It is the view of Robinson and others in baseball that their sport has abandoned the minority hiring movement that followed an appearance by then-Dodger vice president Al Campanis on the television show, "Nightline," in April of 1987.

The most basic principle of any democracy is that of majority rule, with minority rights running a clear but close second. Simple though this precept may be, California seems to have gotten it backward. The budget deal that emerged from Sacramento on Monday was the result of minority rule -- the consequence of a state Constitution that vests more power in the minority party than the constitution of just about any other state.