(2 of 2)
What all the black students want, fundamentally, is more equality, better facilities for themselves, more courses tailored to what they regard as their own needs—and above all, recognition of themselves as black people with their own history, heroes and culture. Michael Smith of Northwestern, where black students last spring briefly occupied the bursar's office (and thereby won an all-Negro center), defends the students desire for apartheid. "They say we are reverse racists, but the fraternity guys are mainly WASPS with money," he argues. "None of them really wants to associate with us, so it's necessary to have a place where we can get together by ourselves."
Limited Goals. The implacable way in which black students present their demands angers and unnerves college administrators. In fact, argue some students of the movement, most B.S.U. organizations represent something of a conservative force in the academic community. Students for a Democratic Society, for example, makes no bones about the fact that it seeks to overthrow the university as the first step toward total revolution. Despite their political phraseology, the black student groups tend to seek relatively limited goals. At Brandeis, students wanted "soul food" (see MODERN LIVING) in the cafeteria; when they got that, however, they went on to set forth ten demands, including the right to hire the chairman for the university's new black studies department.
B.S.U.s do not always use violent means to achieve their ends, and not all of their demands are unreasonable. They have also forced the universities to rethink their obligations to Negro students. Yale now offers for the first time a major in Afro-American Studies. The University of Illinois has agreed to admit 2,000 blacks over a four-year period. Last week a faculty committee at Harvard agreed to establish an Afro-American Studies center, subject to a faculty vote, and Berkeley's executive committee of the College of Letters and Science approved creation of a black studies department.
The White Response. One goal shared in common by all B.S.U. organizations is the end of racism on campus—by which they mean admitting more Negroes to colleges. The real issue, though, is not whether blacks should be given greater access to higher education, but whether they should have the exclusive right to say who should be admitted and what their education should be about. Faculties are unanimous in denying the black students the right to set their own standards and hire their own teachers.
So far, there is no indication that the young militants intend to moderate their demands. "The outcome will be determined by how the whites react," says Juan Cofield, a black student leader at the University of North Carolina. "They'll probably try to repel this, like they've repelled other black demands over the past century. If they do, this will become quite a violent situation. Black people are much more united now, and they're not willing to put up with the same old treatment."