In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

C H A P TER TWO STUDENT MILITANCY T o gain perspective on racial politics and the events of 1969, we need to look at pertinent aspects ofstudent militancy in the 1950s and '60s. I will focus on two areas: student political movements, and student conduct and adjudicatory policies. From one viewpoint, the clash between social justice and academic freedom in 1969 reflected a tension built into Cornell's institutional fabric. The New York State Legislature established the Cornell Agriculture School as a land grant public institution under the Morrill Act of 1862, but Cornell set up its College ofArts and Sciences as a private college. Ezra Cornell founded the university in 1865 as "an institution in which any person may find instruction in any study," a motto that appears on Cornell's shield. The school's first president, Andrew Dickson White, a pioneer of nineteenth-century higher education, strove to make Cornell a combination of the traditional liberal arts university and the modern research institution dedicated to social progress, based on the German model of the research university. A blend ofprivate and public and ofliberal arts and practical studies has been Cornell's distinctive staple since its inception} The 1960s would heighten these tensions to the breaking point. Most ofthe student and faculty activism would come out ofthe Arts College. In this Cornell reflected a nationwide pattern: liberal arts was the natural spawning ground of student activists, and liberal arts colleges in universities were domains of resistance to the larger institutions within which they were embedded. Such students opposed what Michael W. Miles called the "industrialization of the university." Z 25 The 19505 During Cornell's first century, authority over student conduct had shifted between faculty and administration, often creating confusion. In his definitive history ofthe university, Morris Bishop wrote that "University discipline, originally administered by the faculty as a whole and later by the separate colleges, gradually got out of hand as our numbers increased. A University Committee on Student Conduct was formed in 1902." 3 This arrangement lasted until 1955, when the Board ofTrustees returned some power to the faculty through the Faculty Committee on Student Conduct. Still, the president was able to maintain substantial control. The first important student activism began during the presidency of Dean Malott (1951-1963). John Marcham, a man who held a variety of positions at Cornell that gave him a unique knowledge of the university (student, administrator, local journalist, editor of the Cornell Alumni News-a role he would make pivotal in 1969-and son ofHistory Professor Frederick Marcham, who would playa key role in the events of 1969), observed that "in the past, students accepted discipline on campus. .. . Students began to challenge both the rules and the process in the later '50S."4 The biggest battle of the late '50s concerned the policy known as in loco parentis , especially Cornell's rules requiring chaperones for women students and prohibiting apartment parties, which reflected Malott's and the Committee on Student Affairs' concerns about the growth ofoff-campus living (Cornell's was the only coed Ivy League campus at the time). In spring 1958 Kirkpatrick Sale, former editor of the Cornell Daily Sun student newspaper, and his roommate, Richard Farina, led a mass student demonstration against the rules. Over a thousand students shouted obscenities, threw rocks at Malott's home while Malott was meeting inside with the Board of Trustees chairman, and chanted such slogans as "We have parents now, who needs more?" 5 This and other demonstrations over parietal rights were minor compared with what lurked on the horizon, but they were important because they represented the dawn ofstudent skepticism ofauthority, new calls for freedom, and the decline of moral consensus. Also, in the wake ofthe Sale-Farina-led disturbance, the stunned Malott yielded control over student conduct to the faculty and named John Summerskill, a psychologist in the Student Clinic, as vice president for student affairs. Under Summerskill 's aegis, Cornell instituted a new form of student government with greater authority over student affairs; the new Student Executive Board remained in operation until fall 1968, when it was abolished due to student indifference. At the same time, three adjudicatory bodies were created:the Faculty Committee on Student Affairs (FCSA), which reviewed and considered policy concerning student behavior; the Undergraduate Judicial Board (UJB), consisting of students who would hear cases of students charged with violating the university code; and the Faculty Committee on Student Conduct (FCSC), which would review cases...

Share