Each of us has unique experiences, but I will report in part on mine, acknowledging it is limited. The reason for this, to discuss the change on campus brought by Charles Kirk.
I entered Tulane U. in New Orleans as a freshman in Sept. 1956. In my Sociology course on race relations, during the half year course, there was only one lecture on black-white relations in New Orleans. It was presented by Dr. Dan Thompson of Dillard U., also in New Orleans, a HBCU. That lecture was not presented in person, but on tape. Had Dr. Thompson delivered it in person, he might have been arrested for violating the state's segregation laws. Tulane's Arts and Science College was all-male. Females attended Newcomb College, similar to the sexual divisions at many private universities like Columbia and Harvard. The uni. administrator for the Interfaith panel wanted each group to develop a basketball team or the like; leave politics alone. But there were exceptions; a pastor at the Wesley Center (Methodist) quietly circulated a petition to free Morton Sobel, convicted with the Rosenbergs. My point, Tulane in the 1950s was basically a politically conservative university, but compared to the rest of the city, or to the rest of the South, there were some unexpected liberal bubbles perking up. Not boiling the pot, but there.
When very conservative publicist William Buckley came to address us in our large auditorium, some of us bood his points, but everyone could hear the points he was making. Perhaps in club on foreign affairs, I recall debating a friend, son of Christian missionaries who had worked in China, on happenings in Laos. I argued, using NY Times articles, that the Pathet Lao was winning elections and should be recognized; he that it was communist and they don't run elections fairly. Both of us could present our arugments without trouble, but the audience was perhaps 20. For the oratory contest, there was a larger crowd. My topic, "Look Not to Outer Space." Sci-fi films sometimes portrayed kindly aliens who would get all the nations of earth to work together. I mentioned that idea, and those who looked to religion and God to bring peace on earth. My point - if we were to have peace, we would have to make it, not outer space aliens or angels. I won the gold medal.
Despite the opposition of the local NACP, on Sept. 9, 1960, New Orleans finally had its first modern sit-in, with 7 arrested from several local colleges. Two of us were from Tulane, and the rules at the time; we would be suspended until proven innocent. As that was unlikely on the local level, or even on low appellat levels, we might be expelled for years. Within a week, the board of Tulane changed its rules; it deemed the sit-in a political rather than a criminal act, and we were not expelled. Suddenly many more on campus joined CORE, the organization leading the sit-ins. When the 7 us first appeared in court, when the judge entered he threatened to cite us with contempt, as the 2 whites sat with the 5 black defendants and our attorneys. That infuriated the judge. All 7 of us became convicted felons. The first sit-in brought other changes too. The NAACP Youth Chapter quickly defied the adults, and joined the CORE picket lines with their own. Soon, the adult NAACP withdrew its opposition, too. Tulane telephonists were instructed to listen in to all calls to student activists. When liberals sought to form an organization a few years later, the Dean's office lost the petition with the names. Next year, around 1965 or 66 the new petition was accepted and a Young Liberals organization was recognized on Tulane campus. Also a few black graduate students were enrolled at Tulane. Leaders of the Tulane Young Libs debated Mrs. Gaillot on radio one Sunday morning. She demanded to know their religion. Bob Bullard quickly replied by asking about hers. She had been deprived of her general Roman Catholic rights by the city's Archbishop. On the radio she usually referred to a famous black minister as Martin Lucifer King. Bullard and Bruce Kruger provided powerful voices to counter the strong segregationist sentiments.
Around this time I was teaching history at Dillard, an HBCU in NO. The Tulane Young Libs had invited the new head of the Southern Conference Educational Fund, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth of Birmingham, to speak. In October 1963 the Louisiana Un-American Activities Comm., in conjunction with NO DA Jim Garrison raided and arrested the then leader of SCEF and two attorneys who worked with it. SCEF had been founded during the New Deal, and Mrs. Roosevelt had even been present at its inception. After WWII it published glowing reports on how well integrated schools were doing. Naturally, the LUAC would find it subversive. LUAC was headed by very conservative American Legionnaires, who were dismayed when the non-white terrirories of Hawaii and Alaska were admitted as American states. Their fun organization would retain its title, the 40 and 8. Now the Young Libs were inviting a black minister, the new leader of SCEF, an organization not popular with LUAC to address their first large meeting at Tulane. I invited a Dillard student to accompany me to the Tulane meeting. It went well. Some of us decided to go for a pizza on nearby Maple St. Rev. Shuttlesworth could not come with us. We went to Ray's Pizza, a popular place with Tulanians, pulled 2 tables together and prepared to order. The middle-ated waitress came and announced she would not take our order, as we were a mixed group (the Dillard student), Should we have a sit-in, get arrested? I looked at the only black, my guest. I did not say anything, nor did he, but he slowly nodded his head, no. I had not brought the topic up beforehand, because I did not expect trouble. The student said no, so I made an excuse that we had to get across town, and left. However, Cathy Cade, an activist started a who series of picketing of the Maple St. eateries, with large numbers of students going for a long time, and with the support of the Tulane Hullaballoo newspaper. Viet Nam was also an issue on campus at Tulane, but I was not there.
My next teaching post was another HBCU, the fairly new Southern U. in NO, an offshoot of the major campus in Baton Rouge (which I think at the time was the largest black university in the world). There certainly WAS activism on this campus. In spring 1969 a small number of students pulled down the American flag from the pole at the front of the university, and replaced it with a Black Nationalist flag, black, red, and green. So began a black nat. boycott of classes. I know faculty had free speech, and both pro and anti members spoke on stage at different points. I recall a light-skinned professor saying," I may look white, but my heart is as black as yours is." Eventually, Gov. Mc Keithen came to the campus for the first time, and he had no trouble speaking. His first words, please remove that flag (the black nat) before the tv cameras come. He promised to improve conditions. The student strike leaders sometimes brought their rifles to campus, and there was one episode 2 lines, police with loaded weaposn, and strikers. Had a rock been thrown and there might have been tragedy. But, after a time of staring at each other, the striker line dispersed. Some students expelled, some faculty fired, and things went back the following year as if nothing had occurred. For at least a month, most students had boycotted classes. An Arab became the scapegoat, disrupting our way of doing things. He was a radical, and a few years later wrote of glowing biography of w woman hijacker. He was also a scholar who had published in major political science journals. But he left shortly before he was to be deported.
Anti-war demos were visible examples of the left wing influence on American campuses. But beneath the surface, there was a more important reason. The Civil Rights Act promised to treat all applicants for job equally, but the EEOC soon interpreted this to mean quotas to get the number of professors to match the general population as best as possible. It did not mean exactly the same - for example only high-schoo graduates would be in the pool for the quotas for possible admission to universities. But over time, there were more quotas, for women, for this group, for that. By the time affirmative action had taken on the name Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, it was a bureaucracy, in itself, and then promoting certain types of courses, and required courses to denigrate white males and instill the notion that all people of color are oppressed and deserve added boosts. Soon, ANYONE WHO QUESTIONED THIS PREMISE ON CAMPUS WOULD BE MET WITH A LARGE CONTINGENT WHOSE JOBS AND PRESTIGE DEPENDED ON ACCEPTANCE OF THESE PREMISES. A challenge was a personal insult and a threat. So, in the 1990s when scholar Charles Murray sought to lecture about his results on IQ and race, there was rage by the campus left witn. On one campus his auto was attacked, though I don't recall any serious injuries. A woman law professor in Pennsylvania was constantly vilified because she rejected the DEI presuppositions; they demanded she be fired, etc. Insults. When a biological female went on campus to denounce the unfairness of having been injured playing another female team with a trans male, who spike the ball so hard on the her that she was seriously injured. But the pro-trans crowd prevented her from speaking, threatened her, had had her boxed in a room until help could free her. UNIV. HIRES, DEI, MADE THE ESTABLISHMENT IN MOST UNIVERSITIES NOT MERELY SYMPATHETIC TO THE LEFT, BUT USING (OFTEN DISTORTED RESEARCH) TO BOLSTER THE LEFT, AND USED ITS EMPLOYEES TO STIFLE ANY RIGHT WING OR OTHER CRITICISM.
This is why Charlie Kirk is important. He broke through. He got people tp question the official line. Some things he said, I certainly DO NOT AGREE WITH. That is NOT the point. He fought the established b.s. which the academics could not defend academically. Kirk broke the bubble. He brought an era of freedom, so one did not have to agree with him or DEI, or anyone else. Free speech, free inquiry is important, especially at universities. This is one more reason why his murder is a tragedy to all.
