Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

32 Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States
power,and,fromtimetotime,effortsatarbitration.Lineswerefirmlydrawn,
and few were willing to negotiate. In time, backed by Governor Reagan,
Hayakawa succeeded in reopening the school much on his own terms.
Black Studies, as an issue, was one element (but by no means the most
important) in the dispute. On December 7, 1968, the Black Student Union
rejected Hayakawa’s offer to establish a Black Studies department under the
direction of Dr. Nathan Hare. The Black Student Union wanted a program
with more “autonomy” than Hayakawa would permit, and there were elements
in the union’s demands suggesting a racially separatist model. Conflict
between Blacks and Hayakawa continued for nearly two years. On
March 1, 1969, Hare announced that he had received a letter from
Hayakawa stating that he would not be rehired in June. In June, four of the
college’s six Black administrators resigned, charging Hayakawa with racism.
On November 2, 1969, Hayakawa accused the Black Studies department of
a “reign of terror” and threatened to disband it, claiming that it was both
authoritarian and anarchistic. By Christmas 1969, he had again threatened
to close it and to put worthy courses under other departments. The bickering
continued until March 3, 1970, when the entire Black Studies faculty
was ousted because the department’s hiring, retention, and tenure committee
reports were turned in only an hour before the deadline. 15
Cornell University
The first evidence of serious racial discord at Cornell came as early as January
1968, when a Black student successfully challenged the validity of a
psychiatric examination that had been administered by a White person. In
April of that year, Black students protested the “covert racism” of a visiting
professor of economics, Michael McPhelin. Getting no results from the
economics department or the dean, the students disrupted McPhelin’s class
by reading a statement. This brought about a judicial action against the students,
protests of the resulting punishments, and, finally, the occupation by
a hundred Black students of the student union building. The occupation of
Willard Straight Hall occurred in April 1969, a full year after the initial
event. In the course of this occupation, the students armed themselves and