'U' history full of campus activism, attention

1970-1997

In many respects, the University community is used to being in the national spotlight.

Although the University is now making headlines nationwide in the wake of a lawsuit challenging its affirmative action practices in admissions, national attention is nothing new to Ann Arbor.

Throughout the 20th Century, the University and its students have participated in movements that have shaped the place of diversity on campus and often throughout the United States, from mirroring the national civil rights movement of the late '50s and early '60s to taking on individual concerns in the '80s and '90s.

FILE PHOTO A mass of demonstrators show support for the Black Action Movement during a protest that took place March 25, 1970. The demonstrators marched in front of the Michigan Union.

History Prof. Nicholas Steneck, who teaches a class on the history of the University of Michigan, said that despite a recent lull, student activism has been constant at the University throughout the century.

"The students are not as inclined to get as involved as they have been in the past," Steneck said. "There have been periods in the University's history when students have been inclined to be more politically active."

But the decline in activity cannot necessarily be interpreted as student apathy, Steneck said. Times have changed and so have students' attitudes and priorities, he said.

Activism has evolved in a cycle, with students shifting from one concern to another, Steneck said. "Diversity has come back (for debate) about every seven years," he said.

Following the civil rights movement that laid groundwork for other movements, many University students and faculty embraced a series of Black Action Movements during the 1970s and '80s.

BAM I

Late in the 1970 winter semester, BAM members - comprised of students and close to 200 faculty and staff supporters - staged a nearly two-week-long strike that resulted in as much as a 60 percent drop in class attendance for LSA students as constant marches and rallies flooded all areas of campus.

Several days into the strike, members of the Residential College voted to halt all classes as violent clashes erupted between protesters and police.

The strike came to an end when former University President Robben Fleming and the University Board of Regents agreed to increase the University's minority enrollment to 10 percent by the 1973-74 academic year, and to meet a number of other BAM demands.

Despite the strike's surface successes, not all students on campus supported BAM and its goals.

A 1971 Rackham graduate, who did not want her name used, said she is conservative and did not support BAM I and its many attempts to boycott classes and shut down University activities.

She said her point of view was shared by many of her classmates.

"I went to class because I thought it was a crock," said the Ann Arbor resident, whose son now attends the University. "Affirmative action is reverse discrimination and back then I knew it."

She said that although others refused to go to their classes because they were pressured by protesters, she was unimpressed by BAM protests.

"I can remember feeling that people were trying to intimidate me," she said. "I remember I went in a back door so I could avoid the picket lines."

BAM II

In 1975, emotions ran high once again, as debates still centered around minority representation on campus. Student activists charged that the University's administration had not fulfilled the goals it promised BAM I supporters in 1970 - chiefly the pledge to increase minority enrollment on campus to 10 percent of the student body. These factors provided the backdrop for the genesis of BAM II on campus.

Although he was not directly involved in BAM II activities, University alumnus Patrick Anderson, who was a graduate student in the American Culture program and taught undergraduate courses, said BAM II, along with other reforms, acted as catalysts for curriculum shifts.

"Certainly, what the '60s did was raise conscienceness," Anderson said.

University alumnus Patrick Barley, who was a student on the University's Flint campus, said BAM and its attitudes were not limited to Ann Arbor. Barley said a sense of community existed with students nationally, and the principles of BAM, as well as other movements, motivated students.

Barley said students today have lost the sense of togetherness enjoyed by his generation. He attributed this lack of cohesiveness to the absence of a central cause or figure on the national scene.

"There's nothing unified. We had the Vietnam war that unified us," Barley said. "What's a cause now, getting hired by Ford (Motor Company)? Am I going to get the best interview?"

"There's no great black leader out there to take over. Jesse Jackson? No, I don't think so," Barley said. "There's no one whose going to electrify them like Martin Luther King."

BAM III

On March 4, 1986, BAM III held its first major rally, according to a book edited by Steneck and his wife, history lecturer Margaret Steneck. Members of the group's third installment hoped to improve the overall racial climate on campus.

In response to the BAM III outcry, former University President Harold Shapiro adopted the Six-Point Plan, which introduced a formula to increase diversity and understanding between students on campus.

Shapiro's plan was the basis for former University President James Duderstadt's Michigan Mandate, according to the book. The plan, implemented in 1988, sought to systematically increase minority enrollment. Its principles are currently under fire by plaintiffs and proponents of the lawsuit.

Changes in the Classroom

LSA Dean Edie Goldenberg said there is more than one way to achieve diversity at the University. Not only is it through measures such as the Race and Ethnicity or language requirements, but also through offering students the opportunity to expand their ways of thinking socially and academically.

"There are a lot of courses that introduce students to ways of understanding the world that are rooted in different cultural experiences," Goldenberg said. "But, in a way, that's just one way to look at it."

Goldenberg said the University's curriculum has traditionally reflected shifts in history. For instance, she said, the American Culture program has evolved over the years because of changes from historical to modern times.

"That understanding of what it means to be an American has changed over the years."

Anderson said the willingness of his concentration to allow the curriculum to evolve has benefited diversity in academics.

"There's a degree of richness that was true for me and really enriches my professional experiences here," Anderson said.

Numerous experiences contribute to and enrich students' lives, therefore expanding their knowledge and opening their minds, Goldenberg said.

"I think that's what the University is all about," Goldenberg said. "It gives you a deep understanding of your own experiences."

MARGARET MYERS/Daily Earlier this year, members of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action by Any Means Necessary voice their opinions to state legislators at a public hearing at Shelby Township.

12-02-97