The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans has a new director, but who is speaking for other underrepresented groups?

Last month, Sarita E. Brown was named the new executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, becoming the third person since the initiative's inception to hold this position. While the appointment has been warmly received by members of the education community, it also raises anew questions about who speaks for people of color in higher education.

The Hispanic initiative, which was originally launched in 1990 and was reauthorized in 1994, will have a staff of three based in the Washington headquarters of the Department of Education and has a budget for fiscal year 1998 of $70,000. It is the second of three such White House offices charged with representing the educational interests of ethnic constituencies. The other two are: the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and the White House Initiative on Tribal Colleges.

Unlike its sister agencies, - whose primary focus is to be an advocate for their member institutions - the Hispanic initiative's mandate is to be an advocate for the educational concerns of Latinos at every level of the education system, from before kindergarten through college - irrespective of whether the students it advocates for attend Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs).

"We're literally the waterfront," says Brown, who was born in New York and grew up in Texas. Brown is the creator and former head of a minority outreach program for graduate programs at the University of Texas-Austin - a sister program to that which came under fire in the Hopwood v. Tbe University of Texas School of Law case. She also is a former assistant dean of academic affairs at American University.

"In her job [Brown] is a spokesperson for what the commission feels is important to the Hispanic community," says Dr. Eduardo Padron, president of Miami-Dade Community College and a member of the president's Hispanic advisory commission that Brown's office reports to.