ster. Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company The Boston Globe View Related Topics May 17, 2000, Wednesday ,THIRD EDITION SECTION: NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. A3 LENGTH: 1033 words HEADLINE: POPULAR, DIVERSE, ENDANGERED BEVERLY HILLS MINORITY-EDUCATION PROGRAMFIGHTS TO SURVIVE BYLINE: By Craig Tomashoff, Globe Correspondent BODY: BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Michael Higginbotham has heard it for 25 years now. Whenever the African-American lawprofessor tells people he graduated from Beverly Hills High School, "they're very surprised," he said. "I think they're shocked tofind there was any kind of racial dynamic there." Jason Kravitz is just now getting used to it. Whenever the white 17-year-old and his fellow Beverly Hills High athletes travel toa game in another school district, "we always hear the other kids saying we're a bunch of rich, white pretty boys, but that onlymakes us want to fight the stereotype." That stereotype, reinforced by such movies as "Clueless" or the television show"Beverly Hills, 90210," ignores the fact that for three decades, Beverly Hills High has run a popular program that enrollsminority students from the neighboring Los Angeles Unified School District. The venture has turned out doctors, lawyers, and executives, and helped transform what was a 98 percent Caucasian campus30 years ago into one that is now 77 percent white, 14 percent Asian, 5 percent African-American, and 4 percent Latino. And, inexplicably to its many supporters, the program is in danger of ending, even though no complaints about it have ever beenfiled. In the long line of battles against race-based educational plans around the country, there is a fair amount of symbolism in theskirmish in Beverly Hills, where the population is 88 percent Caucasian and the average household income is $173,000 a year.If a popular program in a liberal co...
