Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / March 5, 1969, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
Page 2 THE DAILY TAR HEEL Wednesday, .March 5, 1969 Answering Black Demands aug Star lm 76 Years of Editorial Freedom Wayne Hurder, Editor Bill Staton, Business Manager University Has Much To Learn From Last Night's Trouble As of press time for the Daily Tar Heel, UNC had narrowly averted some major trouble as a result of the Lenoir Hall employees grievances. UNC was fortunate not to have had any trouble. Hopefully there will not be anything as tense and critical as that of last night. However, if this is to be the case the University must learn a few lessons from last night. The first lesson comes from the tactics that some white radicals used that are rather controversial and not necessarily the most rational that they might have used. However, that is not the question that should be raised. The question to be raised is why the students had to rely on these tactics. They had to rely on these tactics because the management has repeatedly refused to treat the workers with any dignity and refused to show any concern for their situation. The workers tried going through legitimate channel and got nowhere. As a result, they walked off the job. Following that the University Food Service management has continued to ignore them or double deal with them.' 0,n. the Sunday night. of the Pine. Room -workers' walkout the management promised a meeting with them to discuss their grievances. They promised to have, at that meeting, the back records of the workers, which workers alleged would show the validity of many of their grievances, particularly those concerning overtime pay. The workers got their meeting the next day but the management did not show up their with their back records. One promise broke. After that the management told the workers several more times that they would get their records and produce them at a meeting. Each time there was some little "hang-up" that prevented them from producing the record. The management has repeatedly treated the workers in this way, as if the workers were back inthe 19th century working for an industrial baron. This treatment of workers, who were already making, in many cases, below the poverty line wages, who had no chance of advancement, and who were allegedly being cheated out of their due wages, angered many of the white radicals to the point where, since Monday, they had begun using stall tactics in the food line service. A second lesson concerns the use of police in this case. All during the afternoon campus police were on A Pointed Word Of Warning From The Chapel Hill Weekly Last week at a conference on the North Carolina College campus, this warning was issued: "You can put it down in your book and don't forget it, the institutions are going to be run by the trustees. You can protest, and maybe make some needed changes, but they are going to end up running the schools, and if you don't like it you can get out." The speaker was not Governor Robert Scott. It was not a spokesman for the white establishment. It was not a member of the North Carolina College administration. Rebel Good, Managing Editor Joe Sanders, News Editor Harvey Elliott, Features Editor Owen Davis, Sports Editor Scott Goodfellow, Associate Editor Kermit Buckner, Jr., Advertising Manager the scene taking pictures of the persons who were stalling in line. This should not have been done. If what they were doing was wrong they should have been told so at the time. The taking of motion pictures only served to intimidate the persons in the line in a way that increased their hatred for those persons in the Administration whom they perceive to have a hand in the affair. Another mistake was made by police when they allowed a hefty student, over six foot tall and over 200 pounds, punch one of the persons in the line who weighs less than 130 pounds. This was done in full view of a policeman who was' less than ten feet away. This happened a second time and nothing was done by the police. This reaction on their part only serve to embolden the students who are opposed to the boycott and only serve to increase the ire of the boycott supporters who were left with the feeling that if the anti-boycotters have the right to use force so brazenly then they too have that right. A third crucial factor was the behavior of one of the white-collar employees of Lenoir Hall, who is as yet unidentified. .Early in the day he told two white girls who were stalling in line: "You look like you want to sleep with a nigger boy tonight." Later on, when the anti-boycott whites were pushing the crowd of boycott-sympathizers out of the hall this man was in the thick of it yelling for the students to "push them on out," only helping to increase the tension and possibility of further violence. This type of behavior on the part of a member of the management of Lenoir Hail only serves to validate the criticisms of the black employees of some of the managers who refuse to address them respectfully and who tell them, when they complain about their paychecks, that "you made enough to get drunk on." It is extremely unfortunate that the racial situation on campus has come to this point. Hopefully, it will go no further. The Administration, if it is concerned about preventing this situation from degenerating further, should begin to act on some of the obvious lessions to be learned from the lesson of last night. One thing is for sure. The University can no longer ignore, as it has done for so long, the many grievances of the employees of the University Food Service. That, we hope, the Administration has learned. The speaker was none other than CO. Pearson, a Durham attorney and a proud black. That warning will lead many to classify him as an Uncle Tom. But, in fact, CO. Pearson has been out there in the thick of civil rights battles since 1932. His credentials as a black and as a civil rights veteran don't necessarily make Mr. Pearson right. But they ought to make him somewhat less suspect than, say. North Carolina's Attorney General. Who knows, maybe a couple of our campus militants will even believe him. Concrete Responses Available JIM CLOTFELTER Former DTH Editor On the subject of universities and how to keep them from being torn apart by racial tensions and by Chicago-style mini-class war fare (between the and the up per-middle-class-white-militants) In this piece, which eventually gets around to outlining some concrete actions this University can take, I will be reminding university people of things most of them already know but may have temporarily forgotten under pressure of repeated pious declarations about the noble purposes of academic institutions: (1) To repeat the obvious, Chancellor Sitterson and the University should act if they are going to act at all while movement is still possible: before a latent crisis breaks onto the front pages, before the chancellor's options are burned behind him by trustees, legislators, television commentators, and militants. (2) Instituting programs (e.g., Afro-American Studies) out of expediency and concern for non-academic societal needs, rather than according to abstract and unbending academic guidelines, is nothing new for universities. (3) Black demands at universities across the nation are not, revolutionary because black students themselves, by and large, are not revoluntionary. They are seeking what? Overthrow of the system? No. A bachelors degree, the ticket to white Establishment success. (4) As a variation on programs already discussed, let me propose TWO Afro-American Studies Programs: (A) an integrated, permanent, regularly-accredited "academic" program, "Black demands at univer sities across the nation are not revolutionary . ., instituted because there are legitimate academic questions to be pursued in various disciplines under the rubric , "black studies;" and (B) a black-run Afro-American "School" offering a, transitional protective "umbrella" both social and academic for black students within the University. This "school" ; would be instituted solely because (And IF) black students want it, and would be ; discontinued whenever black students no longer needed it. . iivc i Point number one above is a truism: if an administrator's latitude for action is not utilized before a crisis, it is unlikely to be utilized under the constraint of crisis. Duke's administration warned militants that confrontation would bring in repressive outside forces (e.g., cops and trustees), and of course it did, but it is the University that suffers thereby. In the pre-crisis stage, a chancellor's most immediate constituency, his faculty, may have considerable influence on his decisions although Sitterson has not so far followed his faculty's lead on this matter. But faculty influence relative, say, to trustees becomes much reduced after blacks take over a building. Point number two needs defending, since faculty and administrators are prone to pass resolutions and make speeches which are heavy on "principles" and neglect the acheal nature of university decision-making. Ideally, perhaps, universities would be purely "academic" institutions (whatever that term means), a decisions as to what programs to be included and excluded could be made by reference to an absolute standard of academic integrity. But American universities have never been so isolated and unsullied. They have never been "ivory towers." They always have served perceived societal needsdemands. Look at the course catalogue: nursing, journalism, the whole range of medical and dental trade skills, the whole range of business skills, computer programming, physical education, social work not to mention military science (ROTC) courses which are given academic credit and taught by officers whose appointments are beyond the university's traditional control. The primary difference between the institutional representatives who first demanded that universities teach courses in, say, accounting and journalism, and black students who demand courses in black studies, is that the former group (1) used the telephone rather than taking over the administration building, and (2) usually helped to subsidize the new program, in return for the training of business recruits. On the third point, black students across the country have sought programs under which they could live and study at universities with greater pride and less loneliness goals which no one would begrudge them. But they also have sought establishment of black-controlled prt0fams so that they could avoid failing out of the loved hated universities, and get their B.A.S. What is a B.A. but a ticket to a corporate (or academic, or other institutional) junior management position? Surely the academic Establishment can find some way to accommodate students who so desperately want "in". Conservative administrators should be intent upon coopting, not radicalizing, black students. They should be flattered that black students consider a college degree so essential to their lives. On the fourth point, since the faculty already has demonstrated its responsiveness to the need for an academic Afro-American Studies Program cutting across disciplinary lines, I won't go into detail on such a program. It would, presumably, have the status of other cross-disciplinary (e.g., Latin American Studies) under the university's general direction, with the ? taff selected by the departments in the customary way without regard to RACE AND both white and black students admitted to classes. From the University's . viewpoint, this would be a relatively "cheap" payoff a "program" name and a few more salaries but also one with definite academic benefits in several disciplines. The rub comes when black students demand abeyance of normal academic requirements, control over a black studies program, and exclusion of whites from faculty or student enrollment. Although there is the unfortunate precedent of ROTC programs-schools-wi thin-schools most universities are unlikely to fully accredit programs over which they have no control as to facilty, content, students, and conformity to university norms. It's just not going to happen. So, how to accommodate black student demands for insulation for academic protection within their own program and for social segregation with what can conceivably be granted by universities? Separate from this integrated program, then, could not the University establish a black-and, social-and-academic "umbrella" program for black students. The director of such a "school" could be named by the university, with black students being given veto power over the initial selection, and the director free to name his own staff. Whereas black students admitted to the "regular" : University programs would be required to -imeet University requirements after, ; perhaps, a one-year "grace" period in which remedial courses could be taken and courses, once failed, could be re-taken black students in this separate "school" would be permitted perhaps an additional year before being required to take a full load of "regular" University 5 courses and meet University grad? requirements. The "umbrella" Afro-American "school" could seive as both (1) a black student union couldn't student " government appropriate black students' share of student fees to suclra "school" for black social activities? and (2) an insulated "transitional" academic program for black students in unfamiliar "white-middle-class" surroundings. An alternative to the "transitional" notion would be to permit black students to major in this separate black school-within-a-school, and at the end of a given period, be awarded a Certificate rather than a degree. (Like, fun example, certificates given in area studies or government service at several graduate schools.) This would present black students with three alternatives: (1) the black-is-beautiful road, through their own, heavily-insulated program, taking as many of the "regular", "white university" courses as they found useful and necessary and finishing with a Certificate in Afro-American Studies; (2) I beginning in the Separatist program and moving into a regular degree program after a year or two of acculturation to a university; or (3) the "mainstream" middle class white road, where traditional academic work (B. A.) prepares graduates for graduate work or business . careers although here, after a "grace" year, blacks would have to play the same (grades and requirements) games everyone else plays. There might be objection to alternative on from black militants saying they were being offered a second-class "Certificate" program, not "fully-accredited." But if one is going to condemn the SAT entrance requirements of universities as dominated by white, middle-class values-which is correct-and if one claims that the grading, teaching, and training is geared to white people and white institutions, then one must go a step further and view the B.A. itself as an "upper middle-class white" degree, too, and thus not something which a left-wing The Daily Tar Heel is published by the University of North Carolina Student Publication's Board, daily except Monday-, examination periods and vacations and during summer periods. Offices are at the Student Union Bldg., Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N. C. 27514. Telephone numbers: editorial, sports, news 933-1011; business, circulation, advertistinf 933-1163. Address: Box 1080, Chapel Hill, N. C. 27514. Subscription rates: $9 per year; $5 per semester. We regret that we can . accept only prepaid subscriptions. Classified ads are $1.00 per day prepaid. Display rate is $1.25 per column inch. Second class postage paid at U S. Post Office in Chapel, N. C. black militant would bother to quibble about Ideally, I believe, a segregated black studies "school" would be unnecessary; there would be only the first type of program integrated both racially and in terms of fitting into the total University program, contributing to the education of both white and black students. But since we live in a far-from-ideal world, and since white people created the conditions "Black students . . . are seeking . . . a bachelor9 s de gree, the ticket to white Es tablishment success . . . iVot overthrow of the system." which militate against black students moving easily into college life, perhaps we need first to try out a black separatist program. Perhaps it is necessary to pass through a Jocobin period "before" a moderate, compromise program begins to look attractive to all sides. Finally, the obvious, again these and other black programs need money to back them up. To admit more black students. To provide scholarships (ideally scoff I:- Sell oo 52,537 Tickets MEMORANDUM FROMiTraffic Office TO: Campus Police Officers ;.. As of Friday, February 28th, the Traffic Office had 52,537 parking tickets which had not been filed. We are well aware that this number means that every car on campus should have been sent home three tickets ago, but I want to. assure you that your efforts to increase this number will be paid' well under the usual pro-rating system we've agreed upon. I would like to squelch a couple of rumors. First, Mrs. Smith was not suffocated to death when 40,000 of the unfiled tickets fell of a top shelf. She died in a flash fire which destroyed an additional 80,000 tickets last week. Secondly, I am not in danger of being fired just because we have been unable to reduce the car-parking space ration by accelerated ticketing. On the contrary, the total lack of money received weekly for the 5800 cars ticketed has crippled the parking committee's ability to accomplish anything. Thirdly, we are not considering adding a new ticket for those who have no intention of paying, anyhow. There have been rumors that we would add a new color to our red, yellow and blue color line perhaps flaming chartreuse. 1 without work provisions) for more black students, or at least to provide more work-study funds for students who can manage to take a less-than-full- . course-load. Tuition might be suspended altogether for in-state students (both white and black) whose parents earned below a specified amount of money. Admissions should be on the basis of high school records for black students. Since the University already provides remedial, courses for many of its white freshmen, &' one-year "grace" period for black" ctnHontc wnulH mprplv extend the- remedial concept. As for a black dormitory (and other -social matters), surely there can be some de facto agreement without burning a ' university down to get it or to stop I someone from getting it. Resegregating dormitories doesn't strike me as a very happy notion, but if black students really want it, surely the housing office which always has managed to keep white students who don't want black, roommates from getting them can insure -that black students who don't want white '. roommates won't get them. (Here the: problem is the Federal civil rights acts.) -The spinning off of black student fees, as suggested earlier, might create nasty precedents for precedent-conscious student government, but it ought to be possible, at least on a one-year trial basis. ow iV 1 if . I To Happiness This is untrue, as we will continue to dish out the normal color series at a rate the Duke basketball ticket line can't match. At this point I would like to compliment your efforts at creating a large-scale communications gap between yourselves and tke students. Dailv I hear comments along the, line of, "That officer talks like he has a mouthful of cracker jacks. It s music to my ears. It is mandatory (sorry, necessary) that no student know that the ticket office looks like, a lenover irom ine iew iorK garbage strike. We must have total FEAR to exist. Last week I hired 25 students to help cope with the mounting ticket problem. We had just reduced the backlog to 48,762 when some SSOC member turned on a fan. Then students quit, and I hope to hire a new group soon. Meanwhile, through extensive discussions with the Chancellor, we have come across an exciting new plan which will surely be fun for everyone involved. We have decided to change the parking zones weekly. You will each receive the only copies of the new zoning regulations, and I expect your ticket production to skyrocket. Finally, there will be a class held next week in Decipherable Ticket Writing. I expect you all to attend.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
March 5, 1969, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75