Posted on 08/14/2002 3:39:58 AM PDT by fr_freak
Carjacking victim was at center of affirmative action case
Published 1:30 a.m. PDT Wednesday, August 14, 2002 LOS ANGELES (AP) - A man shot to death in an apparent carjacking last month was a doctor who began his career as a key player in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court fight over affirmative action, only to lose his license decades later for negligence.
Patrick Chavis, 50, of Inglewood, was shot in the chest July 23 in suburban Hawthorne after three men approached him as he returned to his 1999 Mercedes-Benz after buying an ice cream cone, sheriff's Detective Donna Cheek said.
Chavis exchanged some words with the men before he was shot, and the trio fled without taking his car, she added.
The crime brought Chavis' name back into the news decades after he was one of five black students admitted to the University of California, Davis, medical school under a 1970s affirmative action plan.
Allan Bakke, a white applicant who was rejected even though he had higher tests scores and college grades, sued over the racial-preference quotas. In 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the university's affirmative action program, ruling that race could be a factor but not the only factor considered for admission.
Bakke was eventually admitted to the medical school under the university's revised policy.
In 1996, Californians passed Proposition 209, a ballot initiative that abolished most race-based state affirmative action programs, including those current at the university .
Chavis, son of a welfare mother, went back to the impoverished South-Central Los Angeles area where he was raised and became an obstetrician-gynecologist, catering mainly poor black and Hispanic women. He was cited in later years by former state Sen. Tom Hayden, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., as a role model and a positive example of affirmative action.
But his career was troubled. An Associated Press review of court files in 1997 showed he had been sued at least 21 times for malpractice. He also had a bankruptcy, went through several bitter divorces and failed to pay child support.
Chavis blamed his troubles on enemies and racism.
"They wouldn't do that to a white guy," he said in 1997 as the state Medical Board considered revoking his license to practice in California.
In September 1998, the board did revoke the license after finding him grossly negligent with several liposuction patients, including one who died.
Tammaria Cotton, 43, suffered massive blood loss and died of cardiac arrest in June 1996, hours after Chavis removed fat from her stomach, bottom and thighs.
At the time of his death, "he was working part-time for a welding company that was owned by a couple of friends of his," Cheek said.
But family members said he had intended to try to renew his medical license, she added.
Doctors can petition to have their licenses reinstated three years after revocation although Chavis had not done so at the time of his death, said Candis Cohen, a spokeswoman for the medical board.
Chavis was survived by three children and several siblings, Cheek said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
The creeps like Kennedy who used this guy as a "poster boy" for affirmative action, you WON'T hear from at all on this. They'll have no comment.
Are you suggesting by your title that anything other than the malpractice cases are attributable to affirmative action? If so, I would probably disagree since divorces, failing to pay child support, and being shot would be difficult to tie to the program. However, it is entirely possible that a student was "in over his head" and ended up performing poorly as a physician. Other possibilities exist however.
"...he had been sued at least 21 times for malpractice. He also had a bankruptcy, went through several bitter divorces and failed to pay child support.He was also living proof of the absurdity of affirmative action.
Chavis blamed his troubles on enemies and racism."
Welcome the the usa (united states of absurdity). What's absurd of course is that we just gave it away!
Chavis blamed his troubles on enemies and racism.
"They wouldn't do that to a white guy," he said in 1997...
I am laughing out loud as I read this...
2) Interesting that the report tells us that Chavis returned to South Central (certainly not 'suburban")as an "obstetrician-gynecologist, catering mainly poor black and Hispanic women.."...then adds that this mentor of the poor was busted for bad liposuction.
That's quite a career change.
3) The real link to Affirmative Action is his claim that professional failure was racist - looks as though he got into a habit of blame in lieu of professionalism.
Affirmative action at its best.
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