Thursday, June 4, 1998
Activism of present parallels past
MOVEMENTS: Prop. 209 protests reflect decades of nonviolent
struggle
By the concerned faculty at UCLA Steering Committee
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown vs. Board of
Education of Topeka on May 17, 1954, a succession of Southern
governors – Ross Barnett, Orval Faubus and George Wallace –
symbolically and literally stood in front of schoolhouse doors to
prevent the integration of public education. On May 14, 1998,
Regent Ward Connerly rejected a proposal to guarantee UC admission
to the top 4 percent of students from each public high school in
the state. "We are willing to stand in any gate," he said, "to make
sure that quality doesn’t suffer" (L.A. Times, May 15, 1998).
Another link in the chain.
On February 1, 1960, the era of nonviolent direct action began
when four African American college students demonstrated against
the segregation of public facilities by beginning a sit-in at a
Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. On May 19,
1998, members of the UCLA African Student Union and Affirmative
Action Coalition occupied Royce Hall as a protest against the
effects of Proposition 209 and the acquiescent response of the UCLA
administration to this re-segregating of public education. Another
link in the chain.
During the 1960s, Southern segregationists responded violently
to the nonviolence of civil rights workers. The forces of law and
order were deployed in what proved to be a vain attempt to halt the
wheels of social progress. During May’s Days of Defiance at UCLA,
police were massively employed in a vain attempt to make the
protest and the protesters disappear. At the first of these
demonstrations for freedom and diversity, one student was charged
with assault and two with resisting arrest. Outrageous and
all-too-familiar. Another link in the chain.
We frame the issue of access to UCLA in this fashion for two
reasons:
First, it is important to recognize that the actions undertaken
by the African Student Union and the Affirmative Action Coalition
have a long history. Without resistance to oppressive and
regressive political practices and policies, we would still be
living in a whitened-out society.
We – the undersigned – deeply cherish the diversity that has
been achieved over these long years of struggle; we are in
solidarity with the UCLA students who are carrying forward the
struggle.
Second, although we are mindful of the complexity of the present
political situation, we cannot support the chancellor’s evasion of
the issue. A generalized support for diversity is not enough in a
situation where the resegregating effects of Proposition 209 have
become so painfully evident.
Saying only that we must operate within the framework of the law
is an abnegation of moral leadership when the law itself is an
enormous step in the direction of social injustice. And
conciliatory words do not ring true when they are accompanied by
the premature and excessive employment of police power.
It would be two important steps in the right direction if the
chancellor would request that all charges against participants in
these demonstrations be dropped and if he would take an explicit
stand against Proposition 209.
In 1931, the coal mining towns of Harlan County, Kentucky,
became a battlefield between bosses and workers. Two young girls
wrote a song about the struggle, a verse of which follows: "If you
go up to Harlan County, there is no neutral there / You’ll either
be a union man or a thug for J.H. Blair / Which side are you on,
which side are you on?"
This is the question we are asking Chancellor Carnesale to
answer – not between mine owners like J.H. Blair and the coal
miners, of course, but between politicians like Pete Wilson,
regents like Ward Connerly and all of us – people of many colors –
who are committed to the building of a democratic university
community.