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Unknown: I brought a tape recorder along so I could tape everything I said, so that later on, I couldn't be accused of saying, of advocating bringing rifles onto campus and assassinating administration leaders. It's a sad day when one

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has to take those kinds of precautions, but nonetheless, it would be unrealistic if one assumed otherwise. First of all, my class, I was anticipating meeting my class, which is a 1050 class, and asking them if they wanted to come down here,

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but they were all down here by the time I got to my room. So I'll have to say this now class, I have a research guide for you in the American Studies Office, and so if you'll just go by there this afternoon and pick it up. Show you a little of how to

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read the journals that I've mentioned previously. We're doing some research that I consider very interesting on the way in which public schools are used to enforce political and social conformity in young people. Now, a number of

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students have approached me and asked me, what is it that I have done, why I'm not being retained, et cetera, et cetera, and asked me to go into detail about what has happened, and I've been at a loss for words, which is rare for me, I guess,

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because I can't really say what has happened, and that's part and parcel of the process that Neil Levis was just describing you never really know what has happened. You never know who's made the decisions or why the decisions have been made. And

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what I'm going to do is talk a little about my experiences here this last year, and try and explain somewhat of what, something of what I mean when I say that you can't find out what's happening. You can't get any accountability. You can't

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find anyone who's responsible for making any decisions. For example, I now have doing research with me about 10 or a dozen students taking American Studies, 499 independent studies. This is this course. Independent Studies, in general,

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is designed to humanize the curriculum a little to give you access to a professor close up and give you some of his time and to work out courses that are more flexible and more attuned to your needs than the usual courses of the curriculum. For

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example, I have a couple of students doing a project which studies ethnic awareness in young children preschoolers. I have another student who's doing a project on the school walkouts in East LA. I have another student who's doing a project

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setting what a curriculum for a black nursery school ought to be. I have three students working on the issue of the internment of the Japanese American population during the Second World War, that sort of thing, as far as I can Gulch

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these things, most of the students who are taking these kinds of courses get a lot more out of them, because they put a lot more into them of their own volition than they do from the regular courses. Now, two of the students, two Asian American

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students in particular, wanted to extend their independent study projects into the summer. That's understandable, because there's a wealth of literature dealing with the concentration camp experience for the Japanese in this country, that literature

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has just been tapped. And not only that, but there are people still living were interned there, and it's difficult to find the people run them down and examine the issue of the internment from all sides. So I petition. I went through

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channels. I had just one of the students, or the students, fill out the standard form for independent studies, and I signed it and turned it over to Professor hillbrenner, who's coordinator of the American Studies program. Professor

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hillbrenner, who was also signed by this young lady's advisor, who was a professor in the English Department. Professor hillbrenner then signed this project. He okayed it because he misread the signatures and thought that the person in the

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English department who had signed it was going to direct the studies. Later on, he realized that I was going to direct it, and when he did that, he crossed out his signature there. There's my signature on the top line, the signature of

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another professor underneath, and Professor hillbrenner signature under. Signature underneath crossed out. And instead of approving the project, he wrote me this note. Independent Study assignments are given primarily to full time

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faculty, and on occasion, to part time faculty who are teaching in the program. Since you are not scheduled to teach American studies the summer quarter 1969 you cannot be given assignment to direct independent study. No reason why I can't

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just you can't, which is, of course, the standard answer, you can't. At this point, I wrote back to Professor helm Werner, pointing out that the college would pay me the magnificent sum of $17 per month per student to direct such an independent

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studies project, and I would be more than happy to make available the 10 to 15 hours a week it requires to do this sort of work in exchange for this sum. And I got back another note from Professor Hill Werner that was longer, but in effect said

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the same thing. I'm afraid, however, that the decision not to have you direct American Studies, 499, independent study. The comma is left out, by the way. Is in the positive clause independent study must stand. At which point, I said, well, and

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so I encountered Professor HILLBURN in the hall. I said, Well, why have you made your decision this way? And he went through the usual rigmarole about the line by line budget. We can't do this and so forth, administrative rigidity,

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budgetary requirements. And I said, Fine, Professor HILLBURN, let's cut all through all of this, I will volunteer my time, which is a standing offer I have made to any of my students who want to continue with me for the summer quarter, that I will be

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more than happy to work gratis with them, provided that they get college credit for this work, at which point Professor hilt Werner said, I'm sorry, we just can't do it and walked away. And that's what I mean about the difficulty of getting

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anyone to account to you. Mind you this at a time when you can't pick up the LA Times or any other California Newspaper and not read an article about the shortage of qualified faculty and how difficult it is to recruit qualified faculty.

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Well, my point is, if I'm qualified for three quarters, I'm qualified for the fourth quarter, and if there's any budgetary restrictions, then I will donate my time. But you see, obviously it is not the budget that is involved.

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Obviously it is not administration, administrative ruling that are involved. What it is is Fiat. And this brings me to my second point, namely, that I would not even though I illustrated this with an anecdote out of my own

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background, because really, that's all I can illustrate it with. I'm the only person I really know that? Well, I really don't want you to. I would prefer that you not lose sight of the issues. I can't speak for Professor Von Meyer here, but I

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can speak for myself, and that is, I do not regard myself as that important. Important. What I regard as important is the securing by students of, some say, some control, some voice in their education. That is what I see as the paramount issue.

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Professors, Palmer or myself are neither the first and probably not the last people who will be let go. Summarily. Neil mentioned others, Jerry Farber, Peter man, Judy, Eisenstein, Lou Fox. All of these people were qualified people. All of them

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worked closely with their students, had a good rapport with their students. Their students. All of them did what supposedly you are supposed to do in education, that is influence the contents of people's minds, which is

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probably why they were let go, if you'll pardon, a bit of cynicism at this point. Let me insert another anecdote. I like anecdotes. I think they're informative. Last Wednesday, the Asian American section of epic

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educational program in the community, educational program participation a big part. Educational participation in the community. Had a meeting on Asian American history, in which a young man from UCLA came over and talked to a group of people.

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Afterwards, I was talking to the young lady who had arranged for this program, and she was saying that originally, there had been no Asian American program set up for epic for this quarter, epic was going to have a program in white racism and a program in

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black power and a program on La Raza, but nothing for Asian Americans. And when she asked, why, in view of the fact that Asian Americans comprise about seven or 8% of the population on this campus and probably the largest single ethnic group,

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when she asked why, she said, Oh, she was told, Oh, well, we just didn't think of you, you see, and in that sense, most of you, students and most of us faculty are in the same position. We just didn't think of you. And the reason that we

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weren't thought of, in this case, the Asian American students, but in the larger reason all of us is that, is that we are passive. We accept, we take what's handed out. We grumble about it, but we accept it. We are, as Jerry Farber

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pointed out in an article, niggers. We're all niggers. We're here as slaves. And the ideal is that we should accept what is handed out. We should not in any way try and influence the content or the form of our education. Well, I happen to

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think that assumption is grievously in error. I think that we are the people who are most influenced by our education, the professors and the students, and therefore we should have a very large say in determining what that education

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is like. Let me put it this way, you would never see a private business run on this basis. Where you come, you pay your money, you fight for a parking space that you can't find, and then you are allowed no recourse and no way of expressing your

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grievances when the services prove to be unsatisfactory. If you wouldn't put up from with it, from a private business, I don't see why you should put up with it, from a state college. State College is not any nearer than that, I can see to the hand

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of Dodie. Yeah, and yet, the thing is, because we have this reputation, because the administration can view us as passive and apathetic, they can do anything they want with us, and we will

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not. Apparently, we won't do anything more than rumble. So it's not surprising. To go back to the Asian American case, that there have been several attempts by various people, students, the Japanese American Citizens, league, oriental concern, and

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other people to get an Asian American studies program here. And all these people, plus myself, have written letter to the academic vice president, Kenneth Morton. KENNETH Martin has not answered my letter, nor, to my knowledge, has he answered

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anybody else's letter? Because you see, there is that stereotype coming into play of Asian Americans. They're passive. They won't buy it, they won't destroy anything. So therefore, they'll take what we give them, and though they may

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not like it, they'll shut up. Well, that stereotype applies as well as I'm trying to indicate to the rest of the students, and I think it's time to break through that stereotype and indicate that we're simply not willing to take whatever it is

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that we're handing out. We are better than that. We want a share in determining our own future, and an important part of that future is our education. There are two concepts of education on this campus today. One of them is really not

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educational at all. One of them is administrative that takes the position that students and faculty, for that matter, are things, but you have so many rooms and so many students and so many faculty, and education consists of allocating the

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faculty and the students to rooms in such a way that every room is filled up with one faculty member and a certain number of teachers, and that the whole operation proceeds smoothly and that nobody rocks the boat that is administrative

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education. That is what we're getting here by and large. And here the only again, I have recourse to an anecdote in my class. We began this quarter by talking about the trustees. Since it was my feeling that, since the trustees do ultimately

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shape the policy of the state college system, it would be who with all to know who the trustees are. So we were all surprised, and I don't I'm not just being editorial. I was surprised as well to find out that the trustees are comprised

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of a group. They're entirely comprised of businessmen, lawyers and the like bankers, with the exception of one man who has was a football coach prior to becoming a member of the Board of Trustees. Well, this fact shocked many of my

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students. And so they wanted to know, then, what do the trustees do? And I was at a loss, quite honestly, to answer their question. And I said, Look, your students, you have some resources of your own. Why must you insist on bringing all of

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your questions to me to answer for you? This isn't the third grade. Go out, make use of the library and find out what you can. So they tried to find out what the trustees did by looking at the statutes. And that wasn't very informative. They came.

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Some of them came back and said, we'd like to go see the president. Can we go see the president? And I said, Can I stop you? I'm not going, I'm not going to force anybody to go see the president, but neither am I going to prevent anybody. So

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some students went to see the President. They had a great deal of difficulty getting the appointment, by the way, because the president secretary refused to make the appointment until the student made it clear exactly what it was that he

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wanted to talk about. You just can't walk in and see the president. Evidently, you can't just say you want an appointment with the President. Sock over something that's of importance to you as a student. Well, the upshot of it was that the

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student, two students, finally went to see the President, and what he supposed President green. Lew, first question was, when the students were seated, who sent you? You understand you're too dumb to think of coming here on your own to find

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out anything. You've got to be manipulated by some outside agitator to go to the president's office. Otherwise you never would have had the brains to conceive of that idea left to your own devices. That's not to my mind. What he might

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have said is, I'm delighted to see young people here taking an active interest in their education, because this means that you're going to be better citizens, etc, etc, etc. That wasn't his response. However, his response is, somebody's

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making trouble, and that's why I say there are two concepts of education on this campus. We went through all of this song and dance last quarter, group of students and myself, when we were putting in applications to have an independent studies

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program approved by the dozen or so students who are now taking independent studies with me, we went through channels. I filled out the forms. I gave them to Professor Hill Werner. Professor HILLBURN first told me, Well, we can't have you doing it. There

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are no part time faculty teaching independent studies. So after I showed him that there were six part time faculty teaching independent studies, he said, Well, you have to have your doctorate. So after I showed him there were six more

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part time faculty with no doctorate teaching independent studies, he said, Well, we're considering it. And I there, you see, I deviated from professional orthodoxy. My students asked me, because we're getting very late in the

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quarter, and they wanted to register for their classes for their classes for next quarter. What's happening? And I said, I told them what was happening to you. Never supposed to be honest with your students. You never suppose you keep all

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administrative secrets to yourself, because not to do so is to be unprofessional. So at that point, the students took matters into their own hands. They went to see Professor, they went to do Letters and Science, and would see James Culley and

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Matthew. And Dean Holly, Matthew said, first of all, refuse to give them an appointment. We have no reason to see you. You have no reason to see us. Where 20 of them went, though the deans were willing to talk you see them to go. They won't talk

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to you. They won't give you an appointment. But if 20 go, they'll give you an appointment. And 50 would have gone. Who knows what would have happened. So naturally, Matthew sends them to Professor Henze Werner Dodie. Who turned at the back to

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Matthew and Cully, and that game would have gone on for it until the end of the quarter, and their petitions never would have been approved. Finally, however, the students decided that they would go down to the office of Matthew and Cully and letters of

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science, and they would just stay there until they got an answer, not an answer that went through a bunch of procedural garbage about why we can't do it. We've got this rule now rule another rule, but simply to stand stay there until they got

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their independent studies approved. Because actually, the request to take independent studies is a perfectly legitimate request. It is in the catalog. It is in no way untoward, or it is now in no way illegitimate. Simply here was a

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case of the administration exercising by Fiat its choice of whom it wanted to teach and whom it didn't want, and totally disregarding what the wishes of the students were. Well, I'm happy to tell you that because the students went down in math

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and stayed there, that they were successful in getting those independent studies programs approved. And so this quarter, they do have them. That leaves some of them in alert for next quarter. But that's another, another subject that I won't

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rode this time. Let me Yes. Well, I can't answer that for every department, but in American Studies, what you apparently have to do is you go down and sit in the office of Letters and Science until you can win that

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as a concession from them. I'm not being facetious. I mean, I wish there were other ways, I think a real, earthly reason why it should be that way. But nonetheless, it I spoke at Immaculate Heart College on the subject of student dissent, and

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there was at the same time a young man from UCLA, remember UMass there, who related some of the difficulties that um often had in getting set up and in getting a budget, and particularly in getting a higher quota for Chicano students who

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had been deprived by the educational system, which isn't usually what we mean when we say cultural deprivation, but it's what I mean, or educational deprivation. His description went roughly like this. He went to the Vice President, he went

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to the Vice President, he went to the dean, he went to another Dean, another vice president, three, department chairman, and so forth. They all said, Gee, we'd love to help you, but we're not the responsible party. You've got to go see someone

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else. And his crowning verdict was, as a group, he was that these people were absolutely right. He had never seen such a bunch of irresponsible people in his life, and it is the same kind of irresponsible people who are making the decisions for us

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today. And my hope is that through educational events of this sort, this will no longer be the case, and those people who are most intimately affected by education will be the ones who indeed are making the decisions about education.

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School. Waiting for the reason I've got to put it on paper, because they're going to bring me up on charges of unprofessional conduct. So I've got, yeah, so Okay, after the after Neil and read has read the demands. The

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Chairman of the Academic Senate had said that the demands have been heard, and everybody could go. And the students had refused to go, and the Academic Senate had tried to carry on with its agenda, and the students had demanded that their demands be

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discussed. The Chairman of the academic center wrote on the board, this meeting is recessed until the visitors leave, and every and the academic center walk out, except for a few stragglers who stayed and back to watch. And at that point, I

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was asked if I would chair the meeting so somewhat reluctantly, because I don't think it really is proper for me to chair him, but I did anyhow. Well, I don't know why. I have mixed feelings about i Yeah, I'm taping the whole thing. In any case, I was

00:18:41.380 - 00:18:57.760

chairing the meeting, and we proceeded to try and thrash out an agenda. The feeling was that that we that the people should stay there and work on a meeting and publicize what had happened, and the fact that the Academic Senate had been unwilling to

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consider any of the student demands and had just temporized and postponed and hadn't promised anything specific. So we're discussing how to enlarge the demand, how to reach the campus population as a whole. I think the meeting had gone on

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for perhaps a half an hour. The Academic Senate had walked out at two and around 232 I think the meeting started at 130 and we'd had about a half hour of discussion, which had been very interrupted because there was no procedure, no agenda, no

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anything. And then people wanted to know what had happened, and somebody had to explain what the academic center was and what power it had and so forth. At this point, the chairman of the academic center walks back in, takes the floor without being

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recognized, and says, we're asking you to leave, and you're disrupting an academic function or something of that nature. Well, it's not exactly too clear what he said. And I tried to find out what he had said. I said, Are you threatening? Are

00:19:54.090 - 00:20:07.500

you saying that you're going to call the police and have us arrested? What are you saying? He wouldn't answer that question. He said. Request you to leave. And so at this point the meeting began really to break down. One student asked

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him, Well, look, you recessed until visitors left. The visitors are still here, so you still have recessed. And he said, we're asking you to leave. And that there was a stalemate at that point, and I was continued to try and find out

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more information about exactly what was taking place. And Greenlee, who had come back in at this point, marched over to the front of the room, and he said he gave made a formal statement to the effect that if the students continued to stay

00:20:31.580 - 00:20:44.380

there, they were liable to be brought up in front of the student disciplinary committee, which, again, I asked him then if he would answer any questions. He explicitly refused to answer any questions and marched off to the back to his

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chair at the side of the room. And again, the meeting broke down. Was more. Bob Neiman started to make a speech whose contents escape me at the moment. Bob Neiman started to make a speech. I don't remember what he said. And Neil then came

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and said, look, there police being called that's what they're going to try and arrest her. So what we have to do is we have to vote to adjourn and go elsewhere. And while Greenlee was talking, I was standing next to him, and I said, Dr,

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Greenlee, hope you understand that, that if you're looking at me, I hope you understand that I don't control the students. They do not do what I say, and nor do they do what I don't say. I mean, they're making make their own decisions. This was, I

00:21:27.680 - 00:21:38.840

think, somebody had said, can you get them to leave? And I kept saying, If you give me five or 10 minutes so we can do this in orderly fashion and discuss, and I'm sure that this can be worked out reasonably, but you're not giving me five or 10

00:21:38.840 - 00:21:50.800

minutes, and it's impossible for me to get the meeting under control again, and I don't know what you're what you're threatening me with, or anything. You haven't, haven't said exactly what's at stake here. So green Lee, after I made

00:21:50.800 - 00:22:03.060

that remark to green Lew about my not controlling students, he said, Oh, nobody thinks you do. So is it to indicate you know that I didn't have any control over the meeting, which was quite obvious. I didn't at that point. It was very difficult to

00:22:03.060 - 00:22:16.140

have any control at any point. You know what those meetings are like after Greenlee finished the statement, a while or before, after the I guess after he finished the statement, there was some more inconclusive exchanges. Everybody talking at

00:22:16.140 - 00:22:29.300

once, six or eight policemen. Five or six policemen walked in campus. Policemen walked in, and one of them climbed on a chair and read a statement, or said a statement that to the effect that the students there were in violation of the law, and they

00:22:29.300 - 00:22:48.040

had been called in, and if they didn't disperse, they would be arrested. So students began to mill out, and I also got my briefcase and I left, and I Oh, I said, Yeah, I believe Yeah. I asked either, there was so many people milling around there, I

00:22:48.040 - 00:22:57.100

can't remember who I asked. It was either the chairman. It was either greenley or the chairman of the Academic Senate, or somebody else whose name I don't even know, but it looked important. If you know, if they could give me five or 10

00:22:57.100 - 00:23:06.480

minutes, I could try and pull the meeting back to order and get a have an orderly withdrawal. And they said, no, no, you have to do whatever you can do now, which was nothing, because the meeting was in order. So I picked up my

00:23:06.480 - 00:23:17.220

briefcase and I left, and everybody was in the process of leaving. That's the whole point. Then they went out to a Oh, but meanwhile, before I left, somebody who was later identified to me as Ken Morton, the academic vice president,

00:23:17.220 - 00:23:30.860

came up to me and said, we're certainly going to bring you up on charges and in front of me for unprofessional conduct. This is highly unprofessional, and blah blah, and somebody else who was with him, I was astounded to that, and I said, Well, you

00:23:30.860 - 00:23:44.200

know, I have nothing to say to that. Oh, what I said? Yeah. I said I tried to liquidate this meeting in an orderly way, but he wouldn't give me any time. He insisted on reading all of these things, not answering any questions. And not allowing any

00:23:44.200 - 00:23:55.960

discussion which would have led the students, allowed the students to decide for themselves to leave. And in fact, it was quite clear that the people they were seeking a confrontation, that is, they wanted to bring in, either

00:23:55.960 - 00:24:08.400

wanted to read something and have the students disperse, or bring in the police and have the students disperse, and the students weren't in favor of that, and therefore weren't about to do it, except, really when they were threatened with

00:24:08.400 - 00:24:19.200

arrest, at which point they would disperse. But until it was made clear that that was what was actually involved, it was impossible just to say that the students dispersed, as I guess I also heard that they wanted to bring up Bob Nieman on charges,

00:24:19.200 - 00:24:30.140

and I guess what they wanted us both to do is say, tell the students to disperse, but not in disperse, but not understanding that at that point, it was one couldn't tell the students anything. The students were several mind, some wanted to

00:24:30.140 - 00:24:40.780

stay, and some didn't want to stay. And ultimately, they all had to make their own decision, because they were prevented from making a group decision because the dispersal order was read where by the policeman. Well, that's what happened then

00:24:40.780 - 00:24:41.980

everybody marched off to a.