It has become a cliché to say that during the decade of the fifties, college and university life was a time of student apathy, while the first half of the sixties has been marked by student activism. When the wave of activism began, its most obvious manifestation was the participation of students in the civil rights movement, particularly in the South. No doubt President Kennedy, in suggesting the Peace Corps, was impressed by the idealism and zeal of young civil rights workers and sought to harness them in a broader field.
Students active in the civil rights movement were (and are) a very small percentage of the total American undergraduate student body. Many universities and colleges have not yet been much affected by student activism. The activists have come primarily from leading private and public universities, such as Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Stanford, Michigan, Wisconsin, and California at Berkeley, and from colleges such as Swarthmore, Oberlin, Antioch, and Carleton. These are precisely the institutions that we would expect to attract the bright and idealistic. Not surprisingly, the two qualities tend to go together.
When I became a trustee of Carleton College in 1959, I was not aware of any problem of student activism on the campus. In 1962, when I became a Stanford trustee, there was such a problem, and it had by then also appeared at Carleton. At each institution, the administration recognized that it faced a new and growing problem. In both cases, the tendency was to assume that, because the bulk of the students were not interested in student activities, the student government and the student newspaper had fallen into the hands of a radical minority. In both, it was felt that the problem was not too serious. The hope—and, I think, the belief—was that the less radical majority would eventually become disgusted and throw the radicals out. The attitude was more of wry humor than of alarm. There was also an expression of pleasure at the swing of the pendulum away from apathy and of a fairly confident belief that it would soon start to swing back. But, at least as of now, that swing has not materialized. On the contrary, at Stanford, a long-haired, bearded, sloppily dressed, semi-Marxist, semi-anarchist has been elected student body president by a very large margin. At Carleton, last year’s student newspaper editor, an intense, humorless young man who demands the resignation of the president, the deans, and the trustees, has become student body president without opposition.
It is not my purpose to present a learned analysis of the causes of current student revolt. I could not if I would. There is a large and rapidly growing literature on the subject, produced by psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, administrators, counselors, professors, an occasional trustee, newspaper columnists (the last being mostly of the far-right persuasion, such as George Crocker of the Examiner), and by student activists themselves. Most frequently cited as causes are the disillusioning effects of the Cold War and the atomic bomb, the affluent society and its concomitant hypocrisies, the depersonalization of modern society (including the universities and colleges themselves—the IBM syndrome), and intensification of disillusionment and discontent arising from direct contact with the poor, the ignorant, and the downtrodden minorities—from the difference between what we preach and what we are and do. Some, of course, attribute the whole movement to the machinations of international communism. That there are some avowed communists, Marxists, and philosophical anarchists on faculties and in student bodies is obvious. That some student organizations are admittedly communist is also obvious. One need only recall the W.E.B. Du Bois Society and Bettina Aptheker at California. It is also clear that there is far more contact, consultation, and resultant common purpose between activist leaders on different campuses than there once was. Experiences shared in civil rights work and organization have helped to convince student leaders of the value of national organization. Mario Savio of California and David Harris of Stanford have been lecturing to student groups all over the country. It does not follow, however, that all of this is just a manifestation of the work of an international communist conspiracy. American students, I suggest, are quite capable of getting together and coming up with some common objectives and methods of their own!
My purpose is to describe to you some of the things that have happened on two campuses, and to let you draw your own conclusions.
First, Stanford. When I became a member of the Board of Trustees, student political activity did not amount to much, but a question had been raised as to whether student groups, and particularly student government, could take public positions on political and social issues not directly related to student or university activities. There were two complicating factors. One was a provision in the founding grant, prohibiting partisan political activity by the university. The other was the fact that membership in the Associated Students is compulsory—all students automatically belong, and dues are a part of tuition. Fortunately, the trustees acted before any serious issue had arisen. Any student group may advocate any position on practically anything. The limits are that it must identify itself by filing its constitution and a list of its officers, must account, through the Associated Students, for funds collected, and must, in public pronouncements, make it clear that it does not speak for the university or the student body. Only the Associated Students may not do this; it must confine itself to student and campus matters.
The result has been that Stanford has had no “free speech” movement à la Berkeley. Others, however, abound—anti-draft, anti-Vietnam War, pro-Viet Cong—as well as clubs devoted to more orthodox political causes. Many campus regulations have come under fire, such as founding grant restrictions against sectarian religious activities, requirements that women students live on campus, restrictions on the use of liquor, restrictions relating to sexual activities, restrictions against obscenity, and many others.
On some, the trustees have beaten the students to the punch. Notable instances are religion and liquor. All Christian sects may now hold services in Memorial Church, and most, including Catholics, do. Non-Christians use the old Women’s Clubhouse. Many sects—including Catholics and Jews—have campus ministers. If the program works well, we expect to ask the court to approve it, to avoid problems about the founding grant. As to liquor, its possession or use is no longer prohibited; regulations relate only to its use and abuse, and to possession in freshmen dormitories, which are inhabited almost exclusively by minors. These regulations were worked out in consultation with students, and with the understanding that student government would give real cooperation in enforcing them. So far, no major troubles have developed.
We have had one sit-in, in the president’s office. Perhaps it is only coincidence that a similar sit-in, over the same issue, occurred at the same time at Chicago. The protest was against the university’s allowing Selective Service classification examinations to be given on campus. It occurred on a day when President Sterling was in San Francisco. It began with an apparently spontaneous protest meeting. After some argument between speakers, a Vietnam Day group student suggested that they go to see the president. The crowd straggled to the president’s office, where, to the apparent surprise of some participants, it was met by news and TV reporters, complete with cameras. The crowd entered the president’s anteroom, was told that he was in San Francisco, and announced their intention to stay, which they did until Saturday afternoon.
The administration “played it cool.” Police were not called, although 2 or 3 sit-inners were non-students. Private offices were locked, and the staff left. Administration representatives asked participants to give their names; most refused. No one additional was permitted to enter. The president announced that he would not meet with students while the sit-in continued. Much wrangling occurred among the sit-inners. Air got short, food shorter, tempers shortest. Finally, they meekly filed out. Each was photographed; most gave their names. The administration made no concessions. Participants were brought before student judicial bodies, found guilty of violating rules of student conduct, and placed on probation. There the matter rests.
Current ambitions and protests are now more campus-oriented than previously. White students have been largely frozen out of the more militant civil rights groups, such as CORE and SNCC. Perhaps this is why they are more interested in social regulations than they were. The real interest is in lack of regulations: no requirements that women live on campus, no restriction on entertaining persons of the opposite sex in dormitories or fraternity houses, including bedrooms; no hours when women must be in residence units; no women’s sign-out rules; free dispensation of contraceptives by the university health service; only such rules of behavior as the students themselves adopt; only such discipline as they choose to administer. Sooner or later, a showdown is coming on one or more of these demands. For example, student body president Harris is on record in support of a rent strike by women students who wish to live off campus. It is interesting to note that he spoke to a group of about 200 students, and that Nick Eggelson and Carl Davidson, national president and vice-president of Students for a Democratic Society, met with students at Stanford Thursday and issued a statement backing the strike: “The administration bases your right to live where you choose on financial expediency,” they declared. “We urge you to press the strike until you win and move strongly forward to the larger task of taking power from those who have it, mainly because of financial power—the trustees—and giving it to those whose lives are determined by these power decisions. Democracy in the university means student power.”
Some faculty support some of these demands. A joint faculty-administration-student committee has spent endless hours discussing judicial processes for student discipline and some of the social regulations. Faculty and administration people find most student representatives naïve, arrogant, humorless, pettifogging people, unwilling to reason or compromise. The experience tends to solidify faculty with administration rather than with students, and that goes for faculty who began by favoring student objectives. The basic student demand is for control; the philosophical position is that their personal lives are none of the university’s business. With that position, one can partially agree. With the demand for control, particularly by the type of students who would exercise it, I cannot.
The other on-campus area of interest is the academic. Student body president Harris has made, to him, the astonishing discovery that education is something that goes on in your own head: “Right here,” he says, tapping his skull. His notion seems to be that the whole educational effort at the university is based on the idea that education takes place outside of your head. He wants student representation on all academic committees of the university; he wants them to have a vote; his ultimate objective appears to be control. Meanwhile, he is one of a student group sponsoring a “college” called “The Experiment.” Similar groups exist on other campuses. A few faculty cooperate. Seminars are offered in 32 subjects, including sculpture, filmmaking, the psychedelic experience, black power, technology and human values, city planning, the new radicals, gestalt psychology, and therapy. About 150 students (out of 5,000) have signed up at $10.00 apiece. The student legislature has appropriated $500 for expenses. The sponsoring group proudly labels itself “New Left.” How effective “The Experiment” will be, and whether it will last, remains to be seen.
At Carleton, we have had no sit-ins. The primary clash between students and administration has been over social regulations. As you know, Carleton is a four-year liberal arts college, with no graduate students. It has a student body of 1,250, about two-thirds men, and is 100% residential. Its location in a small town, where the winters are long and cold, is said by some to contribute to student unrest. Like Stanford, it has high academic standards, and there is a lot of idealism in its student body. Each institution claims to send the highest percentage of its graduates to the Peace Corps of any in the country. The director of the Peace Corps hands the palm to Carleton.
One would expect that Carleton, in keeping with its nature and background, would have somewhat more restrictive social regulations than Stanford. But there, too, there have been substantial relaxations. Compulsory chapel has been abolished, open houses in dormitories have been allowed, and women’s dormitory hours liberalized. A joint committee of administration and faculty recently recommended further relaxations in the areas of women’s hours, possession and use of liquor, use of rental cars (students may not have cars at Carleton), open houses in dormitories, and others. These were submitted to the student government and a student poll. Predictably, most were favored, but some, surprisingly, were not.
Among the recommendations was that a permanent administration-faculty committee be created to study and recommend further changes in rules. Students were to be heard, but not to be members or vote. The students immediately demanded both membership and a vote. The presidents of the student body, men’s league, and women’s league appeared before the trustees and presented their case. When their request was turned down, the two men wrote an article in the college paper urging non-cooperation with the administration and denouncing certain of the rules. They asserted that the students alone should make the rules. An accompanying editorial demanded the resignation of the president and the deans. As a result, the student body president, who was a proctor in one of the dormitories, was removed from his job by the dean of men on the ground that he could hardly be expected to enforce the rules, as the dean’s representative, when he held the views that he had expressed. This produced further letters and editorials, but no further action.
At Carleton, the student leaders are as humorless and almost as arrogant as those at Stanford. The battle cry, as at Stanford, is for student participation and voting. Occasional statements indicate that the ultimate objective, certainly as to rules of student conduct, is a majority or sole vote. Some leaders are explicit in advocating student control of academic affairs. Some urge the abolition of trustees; some would abolish administrators. All seem to share the notion that the institution is controlled, from top to bottom, by those who give it money.
The boards of trustees of the two institutions are from pretty conservative backgrounds—men and women in their fifties or older, successful professional or businesspeople for the most part, most of them alumni. What has astonished and delighted me about both groups is that, by and large, they stand up stoutly for academic freedom, including that of students. They do not demand that every student who misbehaves be disciplined; on the contrary, they show a very high degree of tolerance. The only thing that concerns me is whether constant student pressure may not eventually create a kind of counter-pressure—a reaction—that could be damaging to free education. I see no real sign of it as yet. My concern is that student leaders, intransigent as they are, may by their very intransigence cause damage to both institutions, damage that could be avoided if they were even half as flexible as the trustees and administrators whom they oppose.