Nasty, ubiquitous and unloved

Skinheads have been frightening a lot of people in post-communists Central Europe, but several governments are trying to control them.

Among the countless plaques and memorials in the ancient bit of Hungary's capital overlooking the Danube is one that mourns German and Hungarian soldiers who died trying to break out of Buda Castle at the end of the second world war. This was where, on February 13^th, 500-odd neo-Nazi skinheads from around Europe gathered to lament the passing on the “SS heroes”, after which they headed off to a nightclub called the Viking. When police appeared at the club and started asking for passports, the skinheads rioted. Several policemen ended up in hospital, 30 foreign skinheads were arrested, six of whom were quickly tried and found guilty of assault. So it goes for skinheads: thuggery at home pilgrimages to Nazi memorials and scrapes with the law abroad.

Do not expect an eloquent exchange of opinions with Central Europe's shaven heads. When interviewed, they say little, standing arms crossed, fists clenched, eyes burning. Nor are their dogs, often pit bulls with sharpened incisors, much more friendly. The skinheads' preferred method of communication is a boot swiftly and repeatedly administered in the face of a prone victim, though in one recent attack Slovak skin heads did use baseball bats to beat a gypsy boy almost to death. Their favourite targets are indeed gypsies, followed by African students, sundry other ethnic minorities, drug addicts and the homeless.

There are differences between an average West European skinhead and his counterpart farther east. Not all western ones are neo-Nazis; not all are violent; some even call themselves “anti-racists”, and enjoy Jamaican reggae music. There are anarchist skinheads in the West, even glad-to-be-gay skinheads. But in Central Europe to be a skinhead is, on the whole, to be violent. Post-communist skinheads tend to swallow a mix of white supremacy, neo-Nazi dogma, and nationalism tailored to the country in question.

Their numbers vary from country to country, but have been going up. Government and police tend to deflate figures; human-rights groups and the skinheads themselves usually bump them up. One serious study, by the Anti-Defamation League in New York, reckons that, of some 70,000 hardcore neo-Nazi skinheads worldwide, Central Europe now accounts for a good quarter.

Last month, working together with the Czech secret service, police arrested 12 leading skinheads said to belong to the Czech chapter of a British-based “Blood and Honour” gang. They also confiscated neo-Nazi propaganda due to be sold at a skinhead concert, and declared that neo-Nazis across the country had suffered a crippling blow.

Human-rights watchers are less sure. Skinhead groups are well run. They distribute propaganda printed by American neo-Nazis in various languages and send out “skinzines” illegally through the post. The Czechs alone have 15 of them. They are nasty, but it may be hard to pin charges of inciting hatred on the arrested skinheads.

Still, many Central Europeans are trying to stem the skinhead tide. A few days after the riot in the Viking club, several thousand Hungarians gathered to protest against racism. Judges are being sent on courses to make them more aware of racially motivated crimes. The police are hiring gypsy advisers. It is only a start. But the alarm bells have rung: more and more decent Central Europeans reckon that something must be done.

Living without it

At the University of Texas Law School, the halls are whiter than they once were. Three years after a federal court ruled in Hopwood v Texas that public universities in the state could no longer use race as a factor when considering applicants, there are a mere eight black students in a first-year class of 455 at the law school, a smaller percentage than in 1950.

Although Texas is ground zero in the fight over racial preferences in American universities, it is far from the only battlefield. Last November, voters in Washington State passed a referendum similar to California's Proposition 209, banning racial preferences in college admissions. In both Washington and Michigan, lawsuits similar to the Texas case have been filed against the public universities.

For 30 years, American universities sought to increase racial diversity by recruiting and admitting minority candidates, sometimes at the expense of white candidates with better qualifications. This practice went unchallenged until 1978, when the Supreme Court ruled that, although rigid racial quotas were unconstitutional, universities could take race into account since there was a “compelling interest” in promoting diversity in America's colleges.

Proponents of affirmative action, including most university administrators, feel they need only point to the decline of minority enrolment in the best public universities in California and Texas in the two years since the ban on racial preferences went into effect.

Conservative opponents of preferences admit that minority numbers have decreased at the most selective public universities in Texas and California. Yet they point to the fact that enrolment of blacks and Latinos throughout the state system has remained stable since 1996. The way to guarantee more minority students at the top universities in the future, conservatives argue, is to address the twin pillars of social disintegration: broken schools and broken families.

Opponents of racial preferences also accuse the other side of double standards: on the one hand lamenting the decline of black and Latino enrolment since 1996, yet at the same time ignoring the dramatic increase in the number of Asians admitted during that period. Long boasting the highest scores on standardised tests among minority groups, Asians have never needed preferential treatment from universities, and are now benefiting from the new system.

Both sides arm themselves with government studies and self-serving statistics; yet most people concede that very little can be done at the political level. The future of racial preferences rests with the courts. What the legal system cannot do, however, is address the root of the problem: the fact that black and Latino students still lag woefully behind their white counterparts. So long as this grim reality persists, the system will remain broken, and no amount of judicial tinkering will fix it.