Contrary to popular belief, the university campuses never really returned to a calm quiet state following the rebellions of the 1960s-1970s. Actually, the 1970s were filled with anti-war activism until as late as 1973, protests against tuition and fee increases, the organization of nationwide Women's Studies and Peace Studies movements, and towards the end of the decade, the ignition of a draft resistance movement when the registration was restored. By the 1980s, campuses were increasingly the sight of militant student activism over university investments in South Africa, campus racism, CIA recruiters, the US war in Central America and Star Wars research. Although hardly on the scale of the student rebellions of the late 1960s, as Philip Altbach and Robert Cohen explain, it made its presence felt. "There has been some activism, and the revolution in attitudes and values started in the sixties has not completely disappeared."[1]

From the ashes of the student anti-apartheid movement that reignited in the mid-1980s rose a nationwide student led effort not just to make the university accountable for the racism and discrimination in its investments abroad but in its everyday operation and character at home. Although later dubbed the "multicultural" movement, in actuality this movement grew from years of coalition efforts among a diversity of student groups, faculty and nearby communities. These coalitions recognized the limitations of demanding the creation of academic resources to study particular ethnic and racial histories and cultures that were successful in creating Black/African-American, Chicano/a, Asian and Women's Studies programs and centers on hundreds of campuses since the late 1960s and foresaw the need to transform the university in its entirety to serve these diverse needs for fundamental socio-political change.[2]

For the first time since the uprisings of the 1960-70s, students and faculty began to formulate plans backed by widespread direct action to transform the university as a whole working from a base of what remained of 1). previous student movement's successes that resulted in the creation of the above mentioned ethnic, racial and gender focused academic programs and centers and 2). the entrance of many more progressives and radicals into college faculty and even (although less frequently) administrative positions. Growing out of existing "single-issue" student movement groups and working from a foundation created by the efforts of students and faculty in the 1960-70s, the "multiculturalism" movement was hardy new.

Of the existing student movements, multiculturalism has spread the farthest and has had the most explosive impact. Most importantly, it is explicitly both positive and negative in its orientation. Resistance to racism and sexism, increased "minority" recruitment, multicultural classes, and "ethnic" and Women's Studies programs and centers all suggest a refusal of sexism and racism and other forms of hierarchy in the university. At the same time, these struggles organized changes that can potentially transform the fundamental nature of the university itself. Multiculturalism has the potential and in many cases has been able to transform the university from a social factory into a free space which students can use for their own purposes whether they be studying about their heritage and power, creating access to literature, music and people of their ethnicity and cultures, and developing renewable energy.

As a result, multiculturalism has become one of the most significant threats to the stable operation of the university. The subversive potential of
multicultural reforms is not inherent, there are plenty of cases of attempts to institutionalize it to make students better workers. However, we can "re-read" the backlash against these reforms as an indicator of the level of its current or potential threat to the university.

Since 1991, we have heard much organized opposition to the multiculturalism movement put in terms of opposition to specific "multicultural" reforms predicated upon what are perceived to be larger threats to the organization and function of the universities as we now know them. Conservative commentator Irving Kristol warned as early as 1986 that "Our universities as institutions have moved rapidly and massively to the left - and, more often than not, toward the extremities of the left." Just months before, then Secretary of Education William Bennett made the threat explicit: "academic totalitarians are turning our universities into a kind of fortress at war with society, an arsenal whose principal talk is to raise 'revolutionary consciousness.'"[3] Sweeping accusations of "political correctness" made by opponents to multicultural reforms can be re-read as a pejorative generalization of the organizational threat of students, faculty and community groups who sought to refocus the emphasis of the universities from serving business to serving the needs of the oppressed and exploited.

A number of questions that will be asked in the following critical case study of the repression of the multiculturalism movement at UT-Austin in view of both the radical intent of the movement and the opposition. In what ways can multiculturalism subvert or reinforce the entrepreneurial university? Has the movement developed an adequate analysis of the contemporary university in capitalism to see through its demands beyond limited curricular reforms or is it inherently cooptable?

In light of this case study, we need to analyze both the strengths and weaknesses of the movement that I find illustrated in the literature of the right wing counterattack that perceived such reforms as only the tip of an iceberg slowly pushing the university out of the grasp of capital. Yet, with numerous efforts by some sectors of business and the government to coopt multiculturalism as their own in order to better manage a diverse and antagonistic workforce, we also need to consider the inherent limitations of the movement. I do not intend to imply that all sectors of business and government institutions are any more monolithic than the multiculturalism movements. No doubt there are conflicts among the former as among the latter otherwise we would not be seeing the kinds of resistance to these reforms documented in this chapter. Such conflict only helps to confirm the persisting subversive potential of such reforms.

As with the case study of entrepreneurialization at UT-Austin, this case study of the multiculturalism movement must be viewed in light of the complexity of struggle that has resulted in not only different interpretations and analyses of multiculturalism but also different actual forms. I do not recount the creation of the ethnic, racial and gender studies programs nor the wide variety of free spaces that accompanied the increasing radicalization of the faculty. Although I summarize the historical context that serves as the foundation for the multiculturalism movement at UT-Austin, my intent is to detail and analyze the recent efforts to suppress further expansion of radical free spaces within the university and how such repression is predicated on the perceived subversion of the newly entrepreneurializing university. In other words, I ask how the multiculturalism movement can serve as a source of antagonism to new efforts to entrepreneurialize the universities.

This chapter examines the content and context in which the multiculturalism movement has been organized and how it has begun the process of transformation. The multiculturalism movement at UT-Austin offers a case study of both the rise of the movement and the emergence of a counterattack. The conflicts at UT-Austin will be looked at in light of the right wing counterattack under the banner of fighting "PC" and how this counterattack is related to the crisis of the university and the strategy of entrepreneurialization. This will allow a re-analysis of the movement and how the struggle can be further circulated to other sectors of the university in a way that will extenuate the crisis. Clearly, the growing reaction to the multiculturalism movements demonstrates its great if mostly unrealized potential to transform the university to serve the multiplicity of desires held by those who use them but to succeed the movement must articulate an understanding of how it complements other struggles both inside and outside the university.

From "Ethnic Studies" to Multiculturalism

No concise, let alone comprehensive, analysis of the rise of the ethnic studies movements in the universities in the U.S. exists.[4] What we do know about the movement is that much of the ethnic studies programs emerged from movements such as the "Third World Student Front" at San Francisco State University (SFSU) in the late 1960s that forced the creation of various programs and cultural centers for Black, Chicana/o, and Asian-American students. The Women's Studies movement grew mostly during the l970s (as did Environmental, Cultural, Marxist, and Peace Studies), motivated by the powerful success of the ethnic studies movement in the 1960-70s and the entrance of many radicals into the universities beginning in the late 1960s.

One characteristic that distinguishes the ethnic studies movement from multiculturalism is an insistence on a self-proscribed free space for particular communities of students and faculty. This ranged from an academic center, program or degree granting program, to cultural centers or houses such as the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor's Ujama House which are run by students and may range from providing employment preparation skills (such as UT's Minority Information Center) or become a center for organizing struggle. Many universities that created academic programs soon found that the struggle was hardly over, as students and faculty continued battling for the university to provide the resources to attract and keep faculty to teach the classes and the students wanted access to them.

Because the movement has been organized around demands for free spaces which it could control and use as it wishes autonomous from the university as a whole, the offensive struggles that won the programs and resources were soon turned to the defensive in order to defend them. This transformation did not take long, since at the time of the movement's greatest successes such as at SFSU, capital had already begun contemplating a disinvestment from the universities (which we'll see in chapter 5). Because these movements were successful in carving out their own autonomous space within the universities, they became vulnerable to the pressures of austerity and later commercialization that used their isolation against them. Since many of the programs remained relatively separate from the main academic programs as a whole (there were not required classes etc.) administrations responded to their success almost immediately by using this as a justification for taking out budget cuts on them first. This increasingly became the case if these programs were resistant to the pressures of market demand for research or unable to generate large grants. While students and faculty have fought this all the way through the 1970-80s, it did signal a reversal of strategy as a result of the use of autonomy against them.

Perhaps the most significant distinguishing feature between ethnic studies and multiculturalism is that the latter offers the potential for transforming the entire university to serve the multiple needs of every student, whereas ethnic studies sought to carve out a space of its own for the purposes of specific groups. While many people have found this distinction to suggest multiculturalism is integrationist or reformist, it may actually point to an entirely different outcome. Multiculturalism has had the effect of pushing that remaining free space out from its current boundaries to incorporate the entire campus. It aims to transform all the university into a free space under the control of the faculty and students for their own needs - in a way a realization of the early ideals of the uni-versity.

The current phase of struggle has become a threat to efforts to transform the universities into overt businesses because of the movement's ability to devise a strategy that creates rather than reacts. Instead of just defending the existing space of ethnic studies - if even that since many programs have already become institutionalized and commercialized - mu1ticulthsm is an offensive effort to recreate the university to serve the multiplicity of needs and desires of those who use it. And because many of these needs and desires are antagonistic to entrepreneurialization, multiculturalism. has come under heavy attack.

The Struggle for Multiculturalism at UT

The "Ethnic Studies" Movement

A nice way to examine what multiculturalism is and what it can be would be to look at UT-Austin. UT-Austin opened in 1883 under a state constitutional mandate that it be segregated, free of charge and not require entrance tests to its albeit "white" students. Another university was simultaneously created to serve Black students.[5] UT remained a segregated, white only university until 1950 when the Supreme Court ordered the administration to allow Heman Sweatt to enroll in the law school becoming the first Black to attend classes in the law school. However, Sweatt was given separate facilities and did not finish. It didn't take long for those first Black students to launch an attack on racism at UT after it began admitting Black undergraduates in 1956.

A struggle to force UT to integrate the entire campus was finally successful in May 1964 after about five years of student organizing. However, the regent's ruling effectively outlawed minority recruitment because it mandated that "neither the University of Texas nor any of its component institutions shall discriminate either in favor of or against any person on account of his or her race creed, or color." This violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act that was passed a month later and resulted in a decrease in minority enrollment during 1965-66 that would take eleven more years of struggle to eliminate.[6]

In only a few years the struggle for integration would evolve into a struggle for the establishment of ethnic studies programs. In May 1968, the new Afro-Americans for Black Liberation (AABL) won two new programs: a course on Afro-American culture and a lecture series on Afro-American history. In February 1969, AABL presented eleven demands to President Norman Hackerman. "The demands of the militant students included a Black studies department, affirmative action in admissions and teaching staff, dismissal of the Board of Regents, an ethnic studies center in East Austin, the removal of racist faculty and statues, memorials for King and Malcolm X." The Mexican American Student Organization (MASO) linked up with AABL by demanding both Black and Chicano studies programs. While the administration was forced to create an ethnic studies program that was implemented in the fall of 1970, none of AABL's other demands were acted upon, especially UT's 1964 policy banning affirmative action, until much later. At the time there was only one Black faculty member (hired in 1964) and 1 percent of the students were Black while they composed 11 percent of the Texas population.[7]

In the fall of 1971, as a result of further demands by the Mexican-American Youth Organization (MAYO) and AABL, the Ethnic Studies Program grew, offering 14 courses in Mexican-American Studies and 15 in Afro-American Studies. Chicano studies protested a temporary closing of the Mexican-American Studies program soon after that led to its director, Americo Paredes, resigning in protest. The students presented a list of demands to President Stephen Spurr, including "1) the establishment of a degree program in both Mexican American and Afro-American Studies, 2) that the new director of the program be appointed with the approval of Chicano students and faculty, 3) that the university reinstate PEO and CLEO (provisional admissions programs which had helped many minorities enter UT) and 4) that more Mexican-American professors be hired." Between 1972-1974, the Women's Studies program was also started.[8]

In January 1975, the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, responded to requests from MAYO and the students group The Blacks to investigate violations of the Civil Rights Act by UT. HEW found UT in violation on nine counts. Concurrently, members of MAYO, The Blacks, and the Radical Student Union formed the United Students Against Racism at Texas (USARAT) which issued 12 demands that were presented to President Lorainne Rogers. Their demands were "1). standardized tests be eliminated for minority admissions, 2). more financial aid for minorities, 3). teaching assistantships represent minority population of the state, 4). a full-time minority recruitment program, 5). more Black and Chicano faculty, 6). restructuring of Ethnic Student Services, 7). funds for minority newspapers, 8). more money for culture centers, 9). minority grievance committee be established, 10). one Black and one Chicano doctor at the Student Health Center, 11). departmental status for the Mexican-American Studies and Afro-American Studies Centers, 12). a new education building be named after Black and Chicano educators."[9]

To push their demands, ten students took over the president's office on March 13, 1975 while about 1000 people were rallying on the main mall in support of the demands. Although the occupiers abandoned the office for a chance to speak at the regents' meeting the next day, which achieved very little at that meeting, that summer the regents changed the wording of the 1964 nondiscrimination rule so that UT complied with the Civil Rights Act. The phrase "Either in favor or against" was changed to "against any person on account of his race, color or sex."[10]

The Struggle Over "Minority Recruitment"

The ethnic studies movement hardly ended with the 1975 takeover. By the late 1980s, students had begun to expand the discussion of racism beyond just increasing minority enrollment and faculty to a transformation of nothing less than the entire campus. In the process, Black and Chicano students began to articulate plans to implement multicultural reforms while expanding their existing space through Black and Chicano newspapers, a non-discrimination clause, the creation of the Minority Information Center and a battle over the reform of a required English class.

The change in strategy has paralleled a fundamental reversal of advances made in minority recruitment since the 1960-70s when student struggles forced a significant increase. In 1950, only 75,000 Blacks attended higher education institutions in the U.S., rising to 1.1 million in 1980. This rise turned into a decline according to Manning Marable when "the number of Black students in higher education decreased by about 10,000 between 1980 and 1987."[11] The Eighth Annual Status Report on Minorities in Higher Education released by the American Council on Education's Office of Minority Concerns reported significant drops in minority participation in higher education in 1990. Participation for low-income Black high school graduates between the ages 18 and 24 (51 percent of which are from families with incomes under $18,581) dropped from 39.8 percent in 1976 to 30.3 percent in 1988. The rate for low-income Latinos (45 percent of those attending) dropped from 50.4 percent to 35.3 percent during the same period and low-income whites only rose slightly from 36.8 to 38.8 percent. Rates for middle-income Latinos and Blacks fell even further, from 52.7 percent in 1976 to 36.2 percent in 1988 for Blacks and from 53.4 percent to 46.4 percent for Latinos.[12] This is matched by the small number of degrees earned by minority students which is facilitated by low retention rates due to little support by universities. Minority groups only earned about 11 percent of the BA degrees, 10 percent of the master's and 9 percent of all doctorates. However, since the explosion of the multiculturalism movement in the late 1980s as millions of students begin to fight for the diversification of their campuses we have begun to see this turn around. According to the Department of Education, "minority enrollment" rose by about 10 percent from 1988-90 setting records for every group especially Black students who saw the largest gain in ten years.[13]

"Minorities" also constitute a small fraction of the full-time faculty in 3300 colleges and universities (including traditionally Black institutions and community colleges - 9.6 percent. According to the UCLA Higher Education Institute, minorities only make up 3 percent of the faculty at all public, four year institutions.[14]

UT's progress on increasing minority enrollment is not impressive. Chart 3.1 shows the uneven changes in "minority" enrollment.

Chart 3.1 Changes in Minority Enrollments, UT-Austin, 1982, 1991[15]

Group	1982 enrollment	1991 enrollment
"American Indian"	82	136
"Black"	1,311	1,808
"Asian American"	859	3,403
"Hispanic"	3,899	5,615
Total Minorities	6,151	10,962
Total Minorities	48,039	49,961

 

Over this ten year period, only the number of what are broadly and mystifyingly termed "Asian American" more than doubled. None of the other three either doubled or increased to their levels of population in Texas. Even though then President Cunningham has bragged that "UT-Austin has the largest number...of African-Americans and Hispanic students among the 50 flagship state universities" - ignoring the fact that UT has more students than most state universities except Ohio State making the percentages very small - it is still inadequate. This is a clever distortion since President Cunningham's comparison is being made to universities the UT administration likes to compare itself to rather than to all universities. For example, in Texas alone UT-Austin has a smaller percentage of minority enrollment than Laredo State, Pan American, UT- El Paso, UT-San Antonio, and Prairie View A&M, not to mention many junior and community colleges. Although 25 percent of high school graduates are Mexican-American, they are only 12 percent of first year students at senior colleges and 60 percent of all college students attend institutions in El Paso or the Valley. In fact, not only are the increases in enrollment of Blacks, "Hispanics", and Native Americans low but the number of students from these groups at UT-Austin is far below their percentage of the state's population. "Based on the 1990 Census figures, 37.2 percent of the state's 16.9 million population is Black or Hispanic. UT-Austin's enrollment is 14.9 percent Black or Hispanic." In addition, Black enrollment has declined from 1,866 in 1989 to 1,746 in the Spring of 1992, 11 more than spring 1991. Much of this had to do with the fact that new Black student enrollment was only 358 in 1991, the second lowest total since 1982.[16]

The other side of enrollment is retention of minority students at UT. Twenty percent of Black and Latino students leave after their first year compared to 16.6 percent of "whites" and 11.9 percent of Asian-Americans. The overall average in 1990 was 15.2 percent. Within five years, about half of both Black and "Hispanic" freshman left UT, while about 33 percent of both "whites" and Asian-Americans leave. Only 35.9 percent of Black and 41.9 percent of Latino students graduate within five years compared to 53.6 percent for all students.[17]

The administration often reiterates claims that it has extensive services available to the recruitment and retention of minority students. A look at the fact shows this not to be the case. In 1991-92, it only spent $11 million of its $666.1 million budget on related programs - less than 2 percent of the total budget. A list published by Vice President of Student Affairs claims that UT funds 137 different programs to serve this purpose. However, a 1989 Students Association study found that 46 of these were non-existent. The types of services included in the list demonstrates UT's dedication to minority recruitment and retention: seventeen of the programs list "all students" not just minorities as its target group; eight liberal arts programs had the same contact person and four of those are listed separately but are actually the same program; one listed as "Film Series" only uses money for Spanish-speaking films for an RTF class which in fall 1990 enrolled students had to pay an additional fee; and a letter to minority parents and a roundtable luncheon are listed as recruitment and retention programs.[18] "Minority" scholarship programs amount to only $4.5 million annually, "roughly 6 percent of the University's $66 million financial aid total. Each year, roughly 1,600 incoming students apply for the 450 new awards." These programs only serve Black and Hispanic students since UT does not consider Asian-Americans as minorities.[19]

The breakdown of the distribution of financial aid is also indicative of UT's emphasis on minority recruitment and retention. "In 1988, 6.6 percent of the total financial aid of $95,655,759 went to Blacks, 15.3 percent went to Hispanics, 6.5 percent went to Asians, and 71.2 percent went to whites." In addition, only 25 of 2,340 graduate fellowships are reserved for minorities.[20]

It is also interesting to note where the emphasis is being placed on minority recruitment and retention. The Equal Opportunity in Engineering (EOE) program, created in 1970, has grown from a recruitment service to retention and scholarship programs run with four full time staff members. In 1990, EOE spent $150,345 on minority scholarships in engineering alone. This demonstrates that minority recruitment follows the process of capital investment in education. While disinvestment is taking place in areas such as liberal arts, ethnic studies and minority recruitment and retention as a whole, investment is flowing to selective minority recruitment in areas such as engineering where there is more control over the student population. However, even in engineering there is little concern for retention, since only 11 percent of EOE's funds went to retention while 47 percent of its funds went to financial awards and 22 percent went to recruitment.[21]

With much of this information in hand, Dixon, Robinson and Marshall conclude that "there is no substantive affirmative action program here. A true affirmative action program attempts to fill the void left in history by getting minorities in the door and assuring that they do not encounter racial or sexual discrimination while they are there - thus ensuring that opportunities of mobility are unhampered. All other cross-racial and cross-sexual barriers such as qualifications and performance still exist."[22]

The same conditions that exist for minority students are repeated for minority faculty at UT. While UT claims the number of minority faculty increased by 47 percent in the last decade, the actual real numbers are far less impressive considering that, whether for students or faculty, if the study starts with low numbers, the high percentages are meaningless.

Chart 3.2 Changes in Minority Faculty, UT-Austin, 1982-83 and 1991-92

(UT-Austin, Office of Institutional Studies Statistical Handbook, 1991-92. p. 94)

Group	1982-83	1991-1992
"American Indian"	4	8
"Black"	32	52
"Asian American"	51	97
"Hispanic"	60	82
TOTAL	2,188	2,341

 

Of the 2,341 full faculty (including lecturers and instructors) in 1991-92, only 3.5 percent are Latino, 2.2 percent are Black, 4.1 percent are Asian-American, 0.3 percent are Native American, and 89.8 percent are "white". It is also broken down into 73.8 percent male and 26.2 percent female. Yet, these are increases of Black faculty from 1.6 to 2.2 percent and of Hispanic faculty from 2.7 to 3.5 percent for example - hardly that great an increase. The gender split on tenured faculty inched its way up from 1,707 men and 508 women in 1986 of 2,215 faculty to 1,727 men and 614 women of 2,341 faculty in 1990-91.[23]

There are several factors to take into account when looking at these numbers. In 1987, when there were 28 Black and 56 "Hispanic" faculty, only 20 and 35 of them were tenured. While the number increased from 55 to 101 tenured minority faculty, minorities were still only 5.5 percent of tenured or tenure-track faculty. While the actual number of all ranks of Black and "Hispanic" faculty has increased due to pressures of students demanding the diversification of the campus, the number achieving tenure has not showing this increase to be temporary at best. From 1983-91, the number of tenured Black faculty only increased .4 percent and the number of "Hispanic" faculty by .9 percent. Statewide, for example, "Hispanic" faculty make up less than 4 percent of the state's 13,120 full time faculty, few of whom are tenured. The administration also plays loose with whom they classify as a "minority," leaving one student activist skeptical of the administrations claims to success. Then Students' Association President Eric Dixon uncovered that of the 16 "new minority faculty [hired in 1991], at least two of the new Black faculty members on the list are not Americans at all, but foreigners..." and questioned how the administration defined "Hispanic" albeit with a touch of xenophobia. And even though the number is increasing there is still a high turnover. "They're bragging that it's doubling, but last year [1990] alone during the racial incidents they lost six Black faculty," explained Dixon.[24]

Even the funding created to increase minority faculty is not being fully used. While then President Cunningham set up a fund of $400,000 a year to hire minority faculty not hired through regular department budgets, only $250,000 was spent per year. But this strategy is liable to the possible marginalization of minority faculty recruitment by separating the process from the departments, making it the president's and not their responsibility. For example, if department recruitment committees perceive it to be the responsibility of the President's office to recruit qualified minority as faculty, they will overlook this responsibility. In addition to other factors such as the lack of support for minority scholars, this has indirectly contributed to the rejection of some desired minority who have applied for faculty positions and the departure of those already here.[25] This is apparent in the administration's above responses to the multiculturalism movements demand for increased minority faculty that such efforts have met success. As a result, a conflicting message emanates from the top levels of the administration that sets up a fund to hire minority faculty that goes partially unused while offering misleading statistics to demonstrate their success.

Behind this recruitment strategy lies the assumption that departments can eventually hire "enough" minority faculty with the aid of special funding. Such logic relies on the unexplicit use of quotas (such as claims that one, two or three minority faculty are "enough" for each department) and the generalization of "minorities" as interchangeable commodities whose presence grants a department particular credibility. As a result, departments that have successfully diversified their faculty with what is arbitrarily considered "enough" minorities are punished in order direct funds to favor those that haven't.

In rare cases, a department successfully diversifies its faculty with politically outspoken "minorities" who seek to transform the department curriculum or even the university. This was certainly the case with the backlash against the English Department documented in this chapter. Minority recruitment brought in many radical scholars whose proposal for departmental level multicultural curricular reform and support for UT-wide multicultural reforms was met with defeat and the splitting up of the English department into two divisions.

This analysis of the logic of minority faculty recruitment at UT-Austin does not seem so far fetched when one examines the details of the right wing backlash against the multiculturalism movement documented later in this chapter. Without the benefit of an opinion poll, one can speculate that one of the reasons for the eventual faculty vote against the proposed reforms and the widespread ambivalence among students to the issue of racial discrimination was the common misperception that since an effort to recruit minority faculty existed it was enough and perhaps dangerously too much. Supplied with percentages instead of real numbers and locked out from the behind closed doors meetings of faculty recruitment and hiring committees, many people came to perceive of these efforts as sufficient.[26]

No doubt many faculty have worked diligently and sometimes successfully to recruit more minority faculty on local departmental and college levels. Facing great odds, it is their efforts with occasional student support that has result in success. Despite affirmative action programs, without these faculty and student efforts to push for more minority recruitment, possibly nothing would have been accomplished. Although the number of minority faculty recruited to UT-Austin during this period seems small to supporters, they are increases nonetheless, increases that can only be attributed to their struggles. To opponents and stubborn administrators, these increases have been accomplished too rapidly and even too dangerously. The danger lies in allowing student and faculty pressure to alter rigid institutional master plans that often result in the hiring of new scholars not only sympathetic to these movements but by introducing even more students to a diversity of perspectives. Armed with this new knowledge, more and more students begin questioning the organization of not only the university but society. In the process we discover that every bit of ground given in compromise to demands for change are used to make even more demands. Rather than solving the crisis, such compromises can feed the fires of rebellion.

It is not surprising that much, of the struggle for multiculturalism, as for ethnic studies before it, has focused on minority student and faculty recruitment and retention. In fact, minority recruiting policies are now being challenged in the US Supreme Court resulting the temporary dismantling of policies in California and in 1996 at UT-Austin. While these demands frequently are posed in terms of numbers for the purpose of increasing access to positions within the power structure, it frequently has opposite and even antagonistic outcomes. At many of the protests I attended and student newspapers and pamphlets I read (such as in The Griot and Tejas newspapers and the PRIDE, ONDA and QUEERS programs discussed in this chapter), increased minority recruitment and an expansion of access were not always demanded with the intention of climbing the socio-economic ladder. Rather, these demands were made with the foresight of providing access to resources at UT for others who would otherwise be excluded because of what was called "institutional racism." By expanding access these students can contribute to the further transformation of the university into something that can serve not only their own diverse needs but those of a wide diversity of local and global communities. This is demonstrated by the ethnic studies movement's ability to open access to other minorities, many of whom did not intend to train themselves to work but spent a lot of their time studying their own histories, cultures and power and utilized this information to make further changes from affirmative action to divestment from apartheid.

Minority recruitment is part of the uncontrollable process of the crisis: minority recruitment means letting in a never-ending flow of students and faculty who will continue to make demands for change. University of California at Berkley sociologist Troy Duster has deconstructed counterattacks against minority recruitment that are made with charges that minority students are segregationists by suggesting that these counterattackers fear less possible segregation than "the challenges that the growing numbers of Asian, Latino, and African-American students pose to the faculty once they find their ancestors' histories and contributions largely ignored in the classroom."[27]

While students have been winning battles over recruitment and retention, some forces within the university have been resistant out of fear that letting in more minorities will not be the end of the organized challenges. The increases in recruitment that have occurred can only be attributed to the students and faculty that have fought all along for it. But this struggle has gone much deeper than just playing a numbers game. It has never been separated from struggles against racism, sexism and homophobia and demands for the transformation of the entire education system.

Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism at UT

During the late 1980s, while UT was under heavy criticism for its poor "minority" recruitment and retention record, renewed attacks on racism, sexism and homophobia were being made by students. Through financial support from the Students Association (SA), the Minority Information Center (MIC) was opened in 1989 to serve the retention needs of Black and Chicana/o students. During the movement that would ensure in 1990, MIC became a fundamental resource for organizing. SURE Walk (Students United for Rape Elimination), also created by the SA in the mid 1980s, evolved for a while into a force for fighting sexism on campus as University NOW had been for some years, especially incidents of sexual assault that were reported in 1990 to have occurred at fraternity parties. University Lesbians successfully won an inclusion of sexual preference to UT's non-discrimination clause in 1990. This group's efforts were rooted in years of organizing by Gay and Lesbian students to come out of the closet, fight Gay-bashing, sponsor SA funded events and their Friday happy hours that offered a weekly free space. Disabled students have also been on the move. In 1989, ABLE (All Bodies Learning Equally) protested their lack of access to the shuttle buses by being carried on and off a couple buses during the height of campus traffic. They quickly won when UT was forced to not renew the contract with Laidlaw and chose Capital Metro that had lifts. ABLE has continued fighting for ramps and access to classroom and buildings.

Anti-Racism

In the midst of these resurging struggles, UT attempted to devise a racial harassment policy. The six month long Ad Hoc Committee on Racial Harassment, chaired by then UT Law School Dean and current Provost Mark Yudof, offered a recommendation in 1989 which was later adopted as university policy. The nine member committee had only one Black student member. Rather than addressing institutionalized racism at UT such as its poor minority recruitment and retentions, statues of Confederate Civil War politicians on the South Mall, toxic pollution of and expansion into Blackland, South African investments or "hate crimes" on campus or by students, faculty and staff, the committee and its resulting recommendation leaned toward heavy punishments for verbal harassment. In effect, because it focused on punishing individual actions - effectively censoring - such as what people can say, it faced heavy opposition from students such as the BSA (Black Student Alliance) who otherwise would have supported a harassment policy.[28] Ironically, the policy turns student challenges against racism into a means for pitting student against student by redirecting the focus to the students themselves while ignoring the organization of the university. The advocacy of a harassment policy was originally guided by an attempt to restore in loco parentis under the terms of students needs by students themselves. Unfortunately, like many other universities have done, the committee transformed it into a source of university control over even more of students' lives and a tool for dividing students based upon the false assumption that minority students want censorship of others activities.[29]

While heated debate was taking place over the recommendations in Spring 1990, racial and sexual violence within more fraternities triggered an offensive by the movement. On April 12, 1990, more than 1000 students marched through campus, to downtown and to a fraternity house to protest two acts of fraternity racism that occurred within a three day period. On April 9, a car used by Delta Tau Delta fraternity during the Round Up parade was found outside its house smashed up and sprayed with two racist insults. The march was organized after Phi Gamma Delta (the "Fiji's") fraternity was found selling t-shirts with a "sambo" caricature face on basketball player Michael Jordan's body. The fraternity used the caricature in the past as its official mascot, "Fiji Island Man."[30]

On Friday, April 13, President Cunningham was met by about 1000 angry students as he attempted to make a press statement about the week's events on the West Mall. Unannounced to but a few faculty and students who Cunningham invited as his entourage and the press, the students listened for a few minutes until it was clear he was not addressing popular complaints and then surrounded him. After a few minutes, Cunningham nervously retreated to the main mall where he began to give a statement to the press. However, the students soon followed and chased him into the tower. After a short rally at the main entrance, BSA President Marcus Brown opposed any further action and broke up the protest suggesting more organizing meetings that never materialized.

Outrage against President Cunningham's press conference reverberated for a couple more weeks. He had invited two Black basketball players and minority faculty, including professor and current chair of the sociology department John Butler, to stand behind him while he made his speech. While some of the faculty were hounded by students for standing at his side, the athletes began to realized they had been used and mislead. Assuming they had been invited by Cunningham to speak, "Panama" Myers, one of the players, soon realized that "an illusion was created by my standing behind Cunningham that I agreed with what he said...I felt used."[31] On May 2, about 100 student athletes, including the two misled to stand by Cunningham, marched through campus to a rally of more than 750 students on the West Mall. Many athletes also formed the Student Athlete Coalition to break down the division between students and athletes and endorsed BSA's PRIDE.

PRIDE and ONDA

The following week after the racist fraternity actions, a coalition of about 15 Black student groups presented six demands to the university, four of which deal specifically with the incidents. The most significant demand was the immediate adoption of PRIDE (Proposed Reforms to Institute Diversity in Education) which had been in the works for a few years and parts of which had already been presented in the past. PRIDE is composed of six proposals from which I summarize:

1. The African and Afro-American Studies Center should have independent hiring and firing of faculty and staff, have a separate budget for student sponsored projects that does not reduce the center's budget, and the director should be chosen by faculty, students and scholars familiar with the center.

2. Curriculum Diversity should be implemented at each state institution by requiring each student to complete three hours (one course) in African or African-American history to graduate and the creation of a center or department of African and African-American studies.

3. Curriculum Diversity at UT would be implemented at UT with the 3 hour requirement that would also include cross-listed courses.

4. Faculty: double the Dedicated New Minority Faculty Position Fund and retain prominent faculty, sponsor racial awareness seminars for faculty, allow students to challenge "scholastic racism" without academic penalty, and hire more tenured and tenure-track Black faculty.

5. Establish an African-American Student Cultural Center with a $50,000 budget and university space for the facilities.

6. Specifically, the College of Liberal Arts should hire faculty to teach diverse courses on the impact of slavery, increase the percentage of African and African-American faculty in each department, and allow English 314L (African-American Literature) to be a substitute for English 316K and hire an African- American faculty member to teach the course, replacing former Assistant Professor Wahneema Lubiano.[32]

After a seven month delay by the administration in responding to PRIDE, the administration outlined its position in a report presented to BSA on November 2, 1990. These responses were not only questionable in their sincerity and the amount of time it took to generate them, but also an attempt to decentralize authority over each proposal to diffuse the efforts of the movement. The administration's reasoning in responding to each part of PRIDE were problematic:

1. Independent authority over faculty for the Center were denied claiming that "no campus unit has 'independent authority' to appoint and dismiss faculty and staff." This is questionable however. Do not the Institute for Advanced Technology or Center for Electromechanics have control over which faculty and staff will work for them because they are engaged in research potentially profitable to UT? Are not faculty appointed to endowed chairs and granted tenure by a vote of their department (with final approval by the President) thus giving the department nearly "independent authority" to appoint and dismiss? An independent budget for student organized activities was also denied with the suggestion that to do so would not fulfill the center's mission as an "interdisciplinary academic studies unit." It also lists about a dozen general university programs (the libraries, Dean of Students, and the President's Office for example) that sponsor Black cultural programs. None are shown to provide money for student run programs (except the Student Union, and even it requires "adult" supervision) however. Control over the selection of the director was denied. The response reiterated the structure of the selection process that includes the Dean of Liberal Arts selection of a committee of any eight faculty and five students who recommendation are subject to veto by the dean and president. The executive officers of the administration denied responsibility for the entire proposal by directing it to Liberal Arts Dean Standish Meacham.

2. The administration also denied responsibility for the curriculum diversity proposal for all state universities by directing it to the state legislature. It claimed that "it would be inappropriate for the University administration to comment prior to consideration by that body."
3. The administration responded to the multiculturalism requirement for UT students by suggesting that it be presented to the Faculty Senate's committee on multicultural education that was formed on September 10, 1990 and the University Council's Committee on Multicultural Education that was formed on September 17, 1990. Clearly, whether or not it was orchestrated to create these committees during the seven month delay, the administration used the initiatives of the faculty senate and university council to dismiss its own responsibility. The report also suggests presenting the proposal to "relevant departmental faculties and college curriculum committees". The illusion of decentralized responsibility (a similar strategy used to impose austerity) appears as an administration concern for diverse interests. In effect, it disperses the energy and focus of the movement in many directions in order to refract the concentration on the administration that developed in the Spring of 1990. It was also suggested that Dean Meacham be addressed about cross listing courses.
4. The administration offered to increase the $400,000 annual fund to hire more minority faculty if it was able to locate enough candidates since "relatively few Black students are continuing their academic studies to complete the doctoral degree." Such a claim is rooted in the administration's narrow classification of "qualified" minority faculty. The university refuses to consider hiring faculty who have received their degrees from or have taught at historically Black universities and other universities that are not considered as "first class." As a result, the administration's narrowing of the field significantly reduces the available faculty to choose from, most of whom are already courted by many other universities that do the same. In 1989, two Black faculty candidates in Anthropology and one Chicana in English were not hired.[33] Of the 12 offers to Black faculty candidates in fall 1990, only five accepted. Of course, the issue is not to be narrowly construed as these candidates being refused employment due to race alone but in combination with other factors such as their politics. The recruit most likely to be hired is one most suitable to those making the actual hiring decision up the administrative ladder. Often those few hired tend to leave soon after their arrival because of many reasons, including the lack of support and continuing racism. Six Black faculty members left UT following after the events of spring 1990 alone.

   The administration also created racial awareness workshops for some faculty and newly admitted freshman during summer orientation in the summer before it made a formal response. One of the seminars conducted for faculty and administrators is run by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith, a group that fights discrimination against Jews. The choice of the ADL is questionable, since it assumes that Jews are a race and also because the issue of anti-Semitism, although prevalent and related, was not an issue of the thousands protesting and organizing against racism. No Jewish student organizations were even involved. The implementation of these workshops "conveniently excludes the very groups who originally submitted detailed proposals for the multiculturalism awareness initiative," according to a statement of 12 faculty and student groups.[34] PRIDE's concern about "scholastic racism" were dismissed with a vague concern for "academic freedom" and "free speech" with the suggestion that these issues be raised before the new committees, deans and faculty groups.

5. The request for a student center was denied because of the claim that it would lead to "resegregation". Behind this assumption is not only a racist distinction between demands for Black autonomy as "segregationist" and "white" segregation as "separate but equal." The administration's refusal to provide money for student organized activities and a student center demonstrates a fear of providing resources to students who would once against use them to further expand their struggles, as happened with the "ethnic" studies movement of the 1960-70s and continues today with multiculturalism.
6. The proposal for curricular reform in liberal arts was also reflected to departmental faculty and course and curriculum committee of the college.

While the administration attempted to delegate responsibility for implementing these proposals in an apparent attempt to dissipate and diffuse the movement the struggle had the momentum and was able to circulate the struggle throughout the university. That summer, students began to expose UT's connections to Freeport and Gay and Lesbian students fought for inclusion in the discrimination policy. PRIDE also received support from Chicana/o students who devised their own multiculturalism plan, the University Lesbians and Asian- American students. Four new progressive faculty groups (Chicano Faculty Caucus, Black Faculty Caucus, Progressive Faculty Caucus and FACT: Fight Racism (the Faculty Ad-hoc Committee to Fight Racism)) were also organized not only to support PRIDE but to get faculty organized for some later battles in the English department and to stop the Gulf War.

Todos Unidos (TU), a coalition of Chicana/o organizations and individuals formed in 1990 and later proclaimed their support for PRIDE in April. TU members formulated a complementary proposal to PRIDE called Orientaciones Nuevas para la Diversificacion de la Academia (New Direction for the Diversification of Academia or ONDA) and began to organize around its implementation. There are 10 parts to ONDA that focus around student and faculty recruitment and retention, the Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS), and curriculum reform.

ONDA has the following 10 chapters and five appendixes from which I summarize:

1. Social Problems - Suggests that UT identify racism, sexism and heterosexism as social problems, conduct research on them, document "hate crimes" that occur on campus, and identify these problems in the Strategic Plan, 1992-1997. Mechanisms should also be put in place to hear and investigate complaints of discrimination.

2. Admissions - Admissions criteria should be reformed. ONDA suggests norming each ethnic/racial group and selecting the highest scorers if GPA and tests scores are not replaced with unbiased criterion. Also, recruitment should be conducted with geographic criteria and culture-based reference tests. A minority affairs position is also suggested for the office of admissions to aid students at all class levels.
3. Recruitment - UT should expand recruitment of Chicana/os in junior colleges and in areas with high Chicana/o concentrations. Also one minority graduate student should be included on each department's graduate admission's committee, minority outreach centers created on people of color communities, assist public school students to attend college, and increase minority involvement in summer orientation.
4. Retention - UT should create a centralized retention program for all students and faculty. Additional new programs are suggested such as a comprehensive tutoring program for minority and low-income students using graduate students as tutors, increasing minority graduate fellowship funding from $350,000 to $1 million offering multi-year packages, reduce competition for the provisional admissions program and provide tutoring and counseling support, reopen the English Department Writing Lab, increase minority mental health counselors and increase cost free visits.
5. Faculty and Staff - A Vice-President for Minority Affairs should be created. Faculty and administrators should be actively recruited at Chicana/o scholars conferences. Also, two Latina/o law faculty should be hired who teach immigration law and test case courses and faculty multicultural sensitivity workshops should be required.
6. Curriculum - Every college should be required to offer at least one course on Chicana/os, except Liberal Arts which must offer one per department. Emphasis should be given to the Chicana and at least four courses a year offered on Latinos. A master plan should be developed to integrate multiculturalism into the curriculum by implementing it at the institutional rather than departmental level. The American History and Texas Government course requirements must be reevaluated to include a multicultural content. Students should be required to take a multicultural course within the US and world contexts. Also Government and History 314 classes should be expanded to each semester and English 314L (Introduction to Chicano Literature) should be substitutable for English 316K.
7. University Publications - The Minority Advisory Group of TSP should be upgraded to a standing committee; funding should be increased for Tejas and Griot; and more distribution boxes should be made available for alternative publications.
8. Financial Aid - The Office of Student Financial Aid should expand its hours at the start of the semester, eliminate the GPA requirement, provide alternative sources of aid for students on academic probation and create a scholarship database.
9. Center for Mexican American Studies - CMAS should receive a new facility that is accessible to the disabled and has more space. Funding should be increased for a student run Chicana/o cultural center and other student programs.
10. Fraternities and Sororities - A policy and means to investigate sexism, racism and heterosexism by members of the Greek system should be established under the VP for Minority Affairs. Mandatory multicultural awareness programs should also be established.

ONDA also includes further expands on these programs in the following five appendixes:

1. The Excel Tutoring Program - The program would serve low income undergraduates by hiring low income graduate students as the tutors, matching up minority and female students and tutors.

2. Equal Opportunity Program (EOP) & Young Scholars Program (YSP) - EOP would admit and mentor minority and/or economically disadvantaged applicants who are not admitted. YSP would mentor sophomores from "high risk" urban or rural high schools and guide them to admission to college.
3. New Administrative Structure - Established VP for Minority Affairs and details responsibility over multicultural reforms, recruitment and retention programs, Excel, EOP, YSP, and investigate and report racial, sexual and homophobic harassment and violence.
4. The Faculty Development Plan - Five additional faculty positions should be established on a two year trial basis for each in which funding will be shared by the department and administration. Three of the positions will be filled by Chicana faculty and the search and selection committee will be composed of three members of the Chicano Faculty Caucus (CFC), two members of the department and one graduate or undergraduate student appointed by the CFC chair. One visiting Chicana/o faculty position should be funded along with two Chicana/o Faculty Fellowships and six additional Latina/o graduate students as research assistants to support Latina/o faculty.
5. CMAS - An Advisory Committee of four faculty members, two undergraduates, two graduate students, and director should be created to define its goals and objectives, plan the curriculum and participate in hiring. Among the changes suggested are: create an annual orientation program, write an annual report, provide access to resources by Chicana/o students, expand the number of offered courses, offer an activist oriented course, fund faculty and student research, create a student advisor position, fund student attendance for conferences, create a Chicana/Latina Studies Unit, offer a post-doctorate in Chicana Studies, begin a working paper series, expand TA and R.A positions and establish fellowships for undergraduate and graduate students who combine community activism and scholarship.[35]

Although ONDA was presented to the administration in April 1990, they did not receive a response until early December 1990 just as the semester was ending. The responses to both ONDA and PRIDE were coordinated by Lewis Wright, assistant vice president for administration. Not surprisingly, the responses are almost identical in their strategy of decentralizing responsibility for the proposals or touting current administrative programs. According to one Todos Unidos member, eight of the nine pages are spent "advertising" the current programs while using the last page to answer the proposals. For example, the vice president for minority affairs was rejected and the curriculum proposal was delegated to the University Council Committee on Multicultural Education as was PRIDE.[36]

The movement for multiculturalism is made complex by its two fundamental aspects: expanding enrollment and faculty recruitment and totally revamping the way we learn and what we learn to include a multicultural, even international, perspective. At UT, both PRIDE and ONDA place their emphasis on a massive increase of the recruitment of students and faculty and institutional support so that they continue to graduation. They have answered the attack on accessible enrollment with demands for not only increased enrollment but resources to support them, thereby confronting the issue of income used against students with austerity. The most important resource demanded is the hiring of many Black and Chicana/o faculty in every department not only in their own specialized departments.

These demands had the unintentional affect of undermining the very purpose of enrollment management: weeding out students the university doesn't want. UT administrators were simultaneously faced with polar opposite pressures: top-down legislative mandates to reduce enrollment and bottom-up student and faculty pressures to open up enrollment for specific groups of students. Over time, this movement threatened to grow on the strength of participation from students who gained entrance and studied with the new faculty hired as a result of the movement and continued the struggle. I summize that this is why the administration took so long to respond to these proposals while attempting to cover up its own overt fraudulent inaction concerning campus racism and in the end needed a right wing backlash to slow down the movements. More worrisome is when students begin to link up with faculty, which is common in the multiculturalism movement. As the role of faculty as mediators for the administration and implementers of restructuring - as in the case of the promotions of two Black faculty to administrative positions: George Wright to Vice President and John Butler to Sociology Department Chair and endowed professor - are attacked by students, control over the faculty becomes even more tenuous. The formation of the autonomous Black and Chicana/o Faculty Caucuses since late Spring 1990, later joined by the formation of the Progressive Faculty Group and the American Association of University Professors, is evidence that when challenged faculty are capable of coordinating their struggles with students rather than serving as mediators between students and the administration.

The Struggle Widens

Neither the delays nor the denial of administrative responsibility stopped the movements even if they have derailed them temporarily. In fact, PRIDE triggered the circulation of the multiculturalism movement throughout the university. The Indian Progressive Action Group endorsed PRIDE, proposing a multicultural requirement that includes coverage of contributions by Blacks, Asian-Americans, Latina/os and Native Americans as well as intensified faculty and student recruitment. The Native American Student Association was formed as a support group and to expand the number of courses on Native Americans. The University Lesbians and the Gay and Lesbian Student Association also publicly supported PRIDE and efforts have even been made to establish a Gay Studies. The Korean Language Promotion Committee is attempting to establish a Korean language program in the Department of Oriental and African Languages. A group of students and faculty is attempting establish a degree granting Peace and Conflict Studies program and submitted a draft of a proposal to the Dean of Liberal Arts in 1994. Even during the Gulf War, the anti-war movement included the adoption of PRIDE and ONDA in its list of demands to end military and corporate oriented research and funding among other things.[37]

That summer, the University Lesbians won the inclusion of Gay and Lesbian students to the university's anti-discrimination policy. In January, the law school had been requested by the Association of American Law Schools to add sexual orientation to its list of prohibited forms of discrimination as do all its member schools. When Dean Yudof petitioned President Cunningham for advice, University Lesbians sprang into action with demonstrations, blocking traffic on Guadalupe Street with a street festival and a march on the ROTC building to protest its discriminatory policies. In all, 37 campus groups endorsed the petition for inclusion in the policy. This time it took only a few months for the clause to be approved which it was in August. In 1985, President Cunningham "lost" and essentially vetoed a similar proposal.[38]

Soon after the victory, a coalition of five groups - GLSA, UL, Law Graduate Students for Gay and Lesbian Concerns, University NOW and University ACT-UP organized events during the first two weeks of classes in fall 1990 to present their plan QUEERS: Queers United in Envisioning an Egalitarian Restructuring of Society. QUEERS demands that UT acknowledge domestic partner status for Gay/Lesbian students and employees, including access to married student housing, health insurance and other benefits; sexual orientation policy apply to all off campus organizations that use UT facilities; create a Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies and recruit Gay and Lesbian faculty; fund sensitivity workshops for dorm residents and RAs; establish a multicultural panel to advise the Student Health Center; and adopt PRIDE and ONDA.[39]

Even though the new sexual orientation policy has many problems, it was only the beginning to further expanding the movement. However, while UT is now prevented from discriminating, outside organizations and corporations that use UT facilities such as ROTC, are only "encouraged" to adopt the policy. This is unlike the University of California-Los Angeles which has a mandatory anti- discrimination policy. It also only "refers to access to facilities, programs and services. It does not mention harassment," Jessica Selinkoff of Austin ACT-UP points out. As a result, Gay and Lesbians are unable to come out about their sexual preference to outsiders on campus without a threat of discrimination.[40]

For three straight years, the Coalition for a Diversified Law School has participated in a nationwide law student strike to protest the composition of the law faculty, students and course content. By 1990, the faculty was composed of 50 "white males" (84.7 percent of the total), 6 white females (10.2 percent), 2 African-American males (3.4 percent), one Asian-American male (1.7 percent) and no Hispanics (0 percent). During the first National Law Student Strike in 1989, students at 38 law schools boycotted classes and rallied. In Berkeley, 90 percent of the students struck and 43 were arrested when they occupied the admissions office. At UT, 25 percent of the students boycotted classes and about a third showed up for a rally in 1989.

The Coalition's demands in 1990 included four areas:

1. Recruitment and Retention - disclosure of faculty hiring criteria and methods to students, increase student participation in hiring process and allow students on appointments committee to publish a report for students, and increase the number of first year classes taught by minority and female faculty.

2. Recruitment and Retention of Diverse Law Student Body - makeup should reflect state demographics, and increase annual minority orientation program.
3. Changes in Placement Office - Recruiters must be prohibited from discriminating based on sexual orientation.
4. Suggestions - Create at least three endowed chairs for Mexican- Americans, African-Americans, and Women, create a fellowship for minority and female students planning to teach, recruit minority and women faculty to teach at UT, and hire more minority and female adjunct professors immediately.

In 1991, the Coalition, which includes 11 law student groups and a Graduate Student "Support the Boycott" Committee, stopped boycotting classes after participation declined in 1990 and turned the protest into a party to celebrate since the law school was forced to give into their demands. In 1990-91, the law school hired four women, one of them Latina, increasing the total number of women faculty to nine of 60. Only a month before, a group of law students created The Texas Journal of Women and the Law to "focus on legal, social and political issues affecting women." The journal is not strictly focused on academic legal issues but will include first person accounts and papers delivered at symposiums.[41] At the same time, UT was being sued by "white" applicants for charges of "discrimination" in their efforts to enter the law school. In 1996, they were eventually successful in having the US Supreme Court strike down its minority recruitment policies.

Fighting for Institutionalization at the University Council

In the midst of these diverse struggles being fought around multiculturalism, PRIDE and ONDA were transformed into a recommendation by the University Council Committee on Multicultural Education which was chaired by journalism professor Wayne Danielson. After nearly a year of deliberation, the final proposal was made in the fall of 1991 and passed the University Council in October. The recommendation called for the approval of a 3 hour multicultural requirement beginning with fall 1992 and increased to 6 hours by fall 1996. Before 1996, the student may chose between a U.S. or international multiculturalism course. In 1996, this would change to one of each. Foreign language courses that are not primarily grammar oriented can be used to fulfill the requirement. The main thrust of the recommendation comes with a suggestion that currently existing multicultural courses be allowed to count as credit: "The Committee encourages each college and department to seek ways that the multicultural requirement can overlap with other course work required for graduation, thus allowing as much flexibility as possible in planning their schedules."[42]

However, when twenty two faculty members wrote letters of protest to the University Council in October, the proposal was required to be approved by vote of the entire faculty instead of going directly to the board of regents for approval. After letters of opposition from 17 faculty members were received, the non-curricular recommendations (minority student and faculty recruitment, cohort registration, sensitivity workshops for faculty and staff and a student run cultural center) were also brought to a vote of the General Faculty (that is, all the faculty) after they were approved by the University Council. At its only meeting of the year in October 1991, the General Faculty did not achieve a quorum and was unable to vote. Although, all the non-curricular changes were approved by the Faculty Senate's Committee on Multicultural Education and the University Council, the recommendation was sent back again to the University Council.

After a mistake on the Council's faculty list in January, about 432 faculty members (two-thirds of whom were assistant professors and lecturers) were unable to vote by mail on the multiculturalism requirement and were asked to come to University Council Secretary Paul Kelly's office to vote in person, which only 63 (15 percent) did. Of 2,077 faculty, 1,193 (57 percent) voted on the proposal: 434 (36 percent) voted for the proposal and 759 (64 percent) voted against it. Of the 432 who did not receive mail ballots, 30 (48 percent) voted for it and 33 (52 percent) voted against the proposal.[43] Because the margin of defeat is smaller than the number of those who did not vote in person, the vote has come under heavy fire as illegitimate.

Opposition to the plan was clearly organized by a small group of self- described ideologically conservative faculty, most associated with the National Association of Scholars (NAS) through the Texas Association of Scholars (TAS), and entrepreneurial engineering and science faculty. Although many struggles are organized by mainly a small group over a long period of time, this group differs from most activist groups since it had access to alumni and high ranking administrative officials in another effort to block the E306 reforms that we'll see next. This small group of senior faculty were able to dislodge and block a desire for reform demanded by thousands of students in marches and protests and thousands more who voluntarily sign up for multicultural courses. In fact, a University financed survey of UT students conducted in March 1991 by a graduate journalism class found that 57 percent of all 432 students surveyed by phone said UT should require a multiculturalism course.[44]

Student and faculty opponents however attempted to recast the required course as a burden to students in an attempt to utilize popular anger against rigid course requirements that leave no space for a student to take classes in other areas of interest. While all students have little room for taking diverse courses, such a strategy was aimed especially at appealing to engineering students who have almost no allowance or time to take outside courses. Lyle Clark, one of seven engineering professor who filed letters of protest, used this strategy: "Engineers don't have many electives anyway. If you require six hours of multicultural courses, you're taking away the right to take music, art and some of these other things." This was echoed by engineering professor Dale Klein.[45] Engineering Dean Herbert Woodson, who is integral to the entrepreneurialization of UT, based his opposition to the course on the claim that it may "cease being a writing course."[46]

What is clever about this strategy is the very faculty that are imposing the rigid and overworked schedules on engineering students are the ones suggesting that diversifying their coursework would take away what little extra time they already allow them. The very faculty who are denying students free time in the structuring of their degree program opposed multiculturalism under the guise that it would do what exactly that: deny them free time. Opposition also came from other elite faculty such as Steven Weinberg, a physics professor who helped bring the later aborted Superconducting Supercollider to Texas. Weinberg and computer science professor Robert S. Boyer, stressed a lack of time and suggested requiring the "masterworks of literature" such as Greek tragedies. Classics professor Karl Galinsky also touted the virtues of "Western culture" and suggested more time to study the matter by sending the proposal to the Faculty Senate's Committee on the Undergraduate Experience or the Educational Policy Committee - the latter of which he is a member.[47]

This attempt to justify their opposition based on multiculturalism reducing space for electives took place even though the UC recommendation specifically calls for overlapping course requirements so that even the already required foreign language courses can count doubly. Paul Woodruff, professor of philosophy, even opposed an amendment that would allow the humanities requirement to be fulfilled by humanities courses with multicultural content. Woodruff "believed that the multiculturalism courses should be courses taken in addition to not as a part of, the present requirements."[48] Because students can already fulfill more than one requirement with a single course, multiculturalism may have had little or no impact on courseload size. Thus, there must be another explanation for opposition to the recommendation. Opponents wanted to make it appear to increase the amount of required schoolwork to generate opposition.[49] When it was clear that this may not be the case, some like Woodruff attempted to make sure that it would. Although the reasons for its defeat are unclear, the opposition's strategy appeared orchestrated around an attempt to turn multiculturalism into more work in order to strip it of both its support and its potential antagonism to the function of the university to teach us to work. This in mind, it is hardly surprising that the most opposition came from engineering and the sciences since these disciplines are fundamental to re-imposition of control over the universities.

Even though the proposal was temporarily defeated, it has done nothing to slow the implementation of multicultural reform. Classes are still being organized and taught by students and faculty such as E376 by Elizabeth Fernea, professor of English, titled "Multicultural Approaches to Literary Studies." Two Plan II students created a conference course titled "Views of World Cultures" that offers a series of lectures by UT professors. Students are also still fighting to increase minority faculty hiring in department such as sociology where the Sociology Graduate Student Group (SG²) did a survey of what graduate courses have been unavailable and which of these as well as others graduate students would prefer to take. Multicultural topics ranked among the top five. All the colleges except Engineering and Natural Science have established committees to evaluate multicultural reforms or have attempted to do so. The College of Communication held a faculty seminar to brainstorm on introducing multiculturalism into teaching and research, the School of Social Work has a committee that evaluates if courses are culturally diverse, the College of Business Administration attempted to require a three hour degree requirement in either a foreign language or international studies but was rejected by the University Council, the College of Fine Arts has been creating multicultural courses for several years in areas of ethno-musicology and non-Western music, and the College of Education has established a committee as well.[50] According to a guide by the Office of the Dean of Students, there were 33 multicultural courses in 1991, although six dealt with societies outside the U.S.[51] While these efforts may have accomplished little of the comprehensive demands made by students, it is impossible to charge that nothing is changing.

The movement has forced the administration to deal with student demands and has resulted not only with these decentralized efforts but also expanded minority recruitment of students and faculty, new retention programs by the Dean of Students Office, awareness seminars for the administration, and the Faculty Senate and UC's approval of most of the important proposals included in PRIDE. Even without formal admission, the uprising has resulted in a tremendous victory in forcing an increase in the hiring of minority faculty. Between 1989 and fall 1991, the number of minority faculty was increased: women increased from 559 to 614, Blacks from 40 to 52, and "Hispanics" from 70 to 82 while "Asians" only increased from 96 to 97 and Native Americans remained at 8. In all, while the total faculty increased from 2,273 to 2,341, the number of minority and women faculty increased by 72.[52] While this is hardly the spectacular 45 percent increase the administration would have us believe - it is actually only .85 percent between 1989-91 when women are included - it would not have happened even at this level without the spring 1990 uprising and all the other facets of the multiculturalism movement that have complemented it. The uprising gave strength to the many decentralized departmental struggles for minority faculty recruitment and multicultural reform.

Paradoxically, the administrations' diffusing of responsibility for multiculturalism has backfired against it since many departments, colleges and students have continued to quietly but powerfully transform the university without interference from a centralized power. Decentralization has resulted in some defeats, which I will discuss regarding E306, but it has also enabled students and faculty to maintain their own distinct needs in transforming their programs, something that would be difficult if something like the ONDA's VP for Minority Affairs (which would oversee all the changes) were created.

The Counterattack Against Multiculturalism at UT-Austin

Along with the defeat of the UC recommendations, opposition also arose over an attempt to reform English 306 and Tejas newspaper. The opposition developed as the result of organizing by the Texas Association of Scholars (TAS), Students Advocating Valid Education (SAVE), the Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) and a coalition of national backers that began in 1990 following the spring uprising and victories that began to follow with the sexual orientation clause, the attack on the UT-Freeport McMoRan connection, and the law school strike victories.

E306: A Lot of Hype About Basic English

The Lower Division English Policy Committee (LDEPC), chaired by professor Linda Brodkey, was appointed to reorganize E306 in time for fall 1990. Because AI's were given inadequate instructions on how to organize the course and leeway in selecting texts and developing the syllabus, many AI's had already begun diversifying the content of their E306 courses on their own.[53] LDEPC was only an attempt to begin institutionalizing what was already being done. The committee added two new features to the course which was renamed "Writing About Difference": readings from Supreme Court decisions about civil rights and Racism and Sexism, written by Paula Rothenberg, as a main textbook.[54] After internal opposition arose from three English professors over the Rothenberg book, its assignment for the class was canceled on June 26, 1990 and parts of it selected for the reading packet. Only a small part of the book was originally intended to be used in the course.

The internal opposition came from professors Alan Gribben, James Duban and John Rusckiewicz, all of whom were members of the policy committee. Shortly after the Rothenberg book was dropped, Duban and Rusckiewicz both resigned from the committee on July 18. Only three days later, President Cunningham and Gerhard Fonken, executive vice president and provost, met with Liberal Arts Dean Standish Meacham to discuss the course. On Monday, July 23, Dean Meacham announced that the course changes would be postponed a year.

Although President Cunningham has claimed that "the dean [Meacham] made the decision" there is evidence that the decision was made from the highest levels of the administration. President Cunningham's response to a letter received from a Dallas woman concerned about the course on July 9 bears this out. Cunningham responded in a July 11 letter that "After careful consideration, the Department has decided that the course will not be modified this fall." This decision to postpone the course was supposedly not made for almost another two weeks. Although Cunningham has defended the letter by suggesting that it should have included the words "with the Racism and Sexism textbook" added to the end of the sentence, the letter from the Dallas woman never mentions the textbook. With this in mind, English professor Kurt Heinzelman may have been correct in concluding that Cunningham and Fonken were responsible for postponing the course. According the Heinzelman, "Before the weekend [July 20], Meacham and Kruppa were ready to start the course, and after the meetings with Fonken and Cunningham, Meacham reversed his position."[55] Soon after, Meacham announced he would not continue as dean and was replaced by his predecessor, Robert King.

LDEPC kept working after the postponement and devised a new syllabus that still utilized Supreme Court decisions on civil rights cases and parts of the Rothenberg book. However, although the committee reviewed a 46 to 11 vote of confidence from departmental faculty and a proposal to create a oversight committee was defeated 30 to 27, the committee resigned in early February 1991 when a second syllabus was also rejected.

Cunningham was not the only one who had received a letter concerning the course. Anne Blakeney, a Dallas resident and member of the UT Liberal Arts Foundation Council (many of whom donate about $1000 a year to the College of Liberal Arts) wrote Gribben after reading his editorial in the Dallas Morning News. As one internal opponent to the E306 changes, Gribben's response to Blakeney on July 9 indicates a sense of defeat by a powerful multiculturalism movement that could not be stopped without top level administrative intervention - that would come only 12 days later. Gribben suggested to Blakeney that:

*The English department should be placed in receivership indefinitely, with someone like Donald Foss (chairman of the Psychology department) as its director for several years; and then be governed by a new English chairman appointed directly by Gerhard Fonken, executive vice president and provost; and
*During this period of receivership the department faculty should be divided into a Department of critical Theory and Cultural Studies and a Department of Literature and Language. This division of the radical theorists from the remaining traditional scholars would give the latter the freedom to offer a true literature and writing program. Or
*Barring the accomplishment of these steps, the two University-wide required English courses (E306, E316K) should be abolished, thus ending the necessity of hiring additional English professors at the rate they have been recruited from the most radicalized (but prestigious) graduate programs across the nation.

Most vital of all will be a comprehending College of Liberal Arts dean with nerve and a determination to oversee the recruiting policies and decisions of the English department, which has lost all sense of tradition, direction, civility and academic freedom in the classroom.[56]

While there is an irrational level of paranoia and conspiratorial planning in this letter, too many people failed to take what it says seriously. Although it has not been placed in "receivership," the English Department's nearly twenty year old Executive Committee governance structure was soon after abolished by interim dean Robert King who returned as a "comprehending" dean to the college as Gribben had hoped. Although Fonken did not appoint a new English Department chair, he was apparently involved only twelve days latter in reversing the LDEPC decision on E306. The abolition of the executive committee by King fulfilled much of Gribben's plan to divide the department into two departments in order to isolate the "radicals" because only senior (and most likely more conservative) faculty are members of the budget council whereas all faculty can vote in the executive committee. In May 1992, President Cunningham announced a plan to follow through on Gribben's plan to split the department by creating a division of rhetoric and composition.[57]

Gribben's fear of the snowballing success of the multiculturalism movement was quite explicit. The "most disturbing trend I have observed here in the past 10 years," he wrote Blakeney, "would be the selective recruitment of the new faculty members with an expectation that they will bring with them an ideologized sense of advocacy - radical feminism, Marxist analysis, militant 'ethnic' studies - to influence students inside and outside the classroom."[58] (italics in original)

Gribben's letter and the intervention of the administration and other outsiders were reactions to the continuing successes of the movement. One possible explanation for the failure to generate support outside the department until after it was delayed may be that proponents of the reforms neglected to emphasize the strength of the movement and instead focused on the supposed power of opponents and the administration. Simply, the struggle was not circulated sufficiently to others fighting the same battles elsewhere in the university.

This was especially true in the case of students. The terms of debate over E306 were about whether or not it was scholarly or was about writing but rarely whether it was what students wanted. While both sides were busy debating whether the course was ideological "brainwashing" or writing, students only entered into the discussions as presumably passive and susceptible to manipulation. This underlying assumption is paradoxical considering that it was students who initially demanded and protested for multicultural reforms. In the end, just as E306 was taken out of the hands of the English faculty, multiculturalism was taken out of the hands of students who created and demanded it. This is still the case with the movement at large whose discourse about itself remains at the level of the struggle over theory rather than the struggle over the way we live or even the university itself.[59]

The Hatchet Man

Could it be coincidental that Robert King was selected to replace Dean Meacham so soon after Gribben's letter calls out for what would soon be done not only to the English department but other programs as well? Gribben and King have crossed paths at least once before. In 1985, when King kicked students off the Freshman English Policy Committee, Gribben was "disappointed" and opposed to the students taking out an ad in the Daily Texan to publicize the action.[60]

Almost immediately, King moved to abolish the executive committee and impose a budget council over the expressed consent of the faculty due to a claim that the department had become "dysfunctional", the only reason permitted by the UT Handbook of Operating Procedures for changing a department's governance structure. According to professor Kurt Heinzelman, such a claim was grounded on the misperception of a crisis and antagonism perpetuated by professors Duban and Gribben. For example, Gribben claims that he was driven out of the department and UT because he lost a vote of 41 to 1 to create an MA in what he calls "Third World Studies." The vote was made by the Graduate Studies Committee - which Gribben chaired - and he was even allowed to vote even though it is prohibited by the rules for the chair to vote. Duban has also cited "factionalism" as justification for praising King's threat to change the governance structure, a move Duban never brought up publicly before the department faculty.[61] In fact, no evidence of the department becoming "dysfunctional" was ever presented.[62]

On February 22, 1991, the English department voted 80 to 1 to retain the ten member elected executive committee (which has five full, three associate, and two assistant professors). On June 26, King notified Kruppa that he is "inclined not to approve a continuation of the Executive Council mode of governance as the Department has proposed" and instead suggests its replacement with a budget

council consisting of "all and only the Full Professors in the Department." On July 9, the faculty once again vote 34 to 11 to reaffirm their support of an executive committee. King never responded directly to this resolution nor to a proposal by Kruppa to set up an outside committee to study the governance question until the Executive Committee's term expired in February.[63]

Rather than moving against disfunctionalism, King actions indicate a pattern by which he acted to undermine a governance structure that significantly increased recruitment of minority faculty, initiated E306 and began to transform the rest of the curriculum. According to Heinzelman, who resigned in September as chairman of the English Department recruitment committee, a memo from King asserts that "our recruitment practices have long troubled him." "During our two years without King, the English Department hired women and minorities with unparalleled success, and the first action King takes when he is back in office is to suspend the departmental agency that made those appointments." Coincidentally, the change to a budget council also excludes many of these new hires since there are only three female and two minority full professors in the department. Soon after the governance change chairman Joseph Kruppa was informed that only four of nine available faculty positions could be filled due to budget cuts. King had suspended hiring once in 1989 noting his discomfort with the increased recruitment of faculty with "non-traditional approaches to literary interpretations" according to a memo to then department chair Bill Sutherland.[64]

King continued to disrupt other academic programs for a few more years until his retirement as dean. When he replaced Meacham in June 1991, he refused to honor an agreement made between Meacham and sociology professor Susan Marshall to head the Women's Studies program. Marshall had been offered certain support provisions including a small pay raise, a larger budget to hire its own staff, tune off for the summer and a reduced course load to carry out administrative duties. When King refused to allow these provisions, Marshall refused and King offered the position to other members of the Women's Studies Steering Committee who turned him down. One of those candidates, Carol Mackay, an English professor, said she was offered the position "while Marshall thought she was still negotiating with Dean King." A few months later Marshall accepted the job without a reduced course load and a promise to maintain the same low level of support (e.g. not to cut the budget).[65]

King's relationship to the program reflects a deeper conflict between the administration and the Women's Studies program. Women's Studies is neither a department or a required course for any of the UT curriculum. English professor Jane Marcus (who left the university in 1990) notes that "There is a 10- to 15-year gap in funding Women's Studies at UT compared to other comparable universities." Even though six Women's Studies faculty finally received Regents approval for the "Proposal for a Special Concentration in Women's Studies" in 1987 after years of struggle, students must take 21 hours of cross-listed courses to qualify for the concentration - while most minors in other fields only require about 12 hours - and write a thesis. When they complete this, they'll receive a handmade certificate and their concentration will not show up on their diploma. UT's refusal to adequately fund the program is quite explicit. According to Catherine Cantieri, "Women's Studies' funding for printing information and an occasional lecture comes from the LAIP's [Liberal Arts Interdisciplinary Program] $74,308 share of the more than-$600 million UT budget. And that $74,308 is shared with African-American Studies, Mexican-American Studies, and European Studies. The money allocated for Women's Studies is so small that Marcus takes $3,000 out of her salary each year and donates it to the program."[66]

Marcus reasons that "It appears that the opposition [to Women's Studies] comes from above." "Under Dean King, [1980-1989] Women's Studies was built by volunteer faculty members who had no time off or extra pay for building the program. The only thing we got in return [for the volunteer efforts] from the university was occasionally money for speakers, but no women's center...or meeting place... [which would] make the program comparable to [other studies at the University]," says Marcus. Even though 800-1000 students register for Women's Studies cross-listed courses each semester, the program ranks far behind the University of Alabama, for example, which has a center and official program. When Marcus took it into her own hands to generate outside financial support for Women's Studies by speaking at a house of a UT alumna with prior permission from King, and raised thousands of dollars, she felt the weight of opposition. According to Catherine Cantieri, "when she took the checks to King, [according to Marcus] 'he was furious and refused to allow any more fund raising' because such efforts were 'earmarked for other projects...that were considered more important."[67]

King's handling of the selection of the new Humanities head was almost identical. King would not recognize Meacham's offer of a small pay raise and a reduced course load to Michael Stoff to head the program. Although King gave Stoff until July 15 to accept his offer, on July 10, King notified Stoff by letter that he had already offered the position to Norman Farmer of English. Farmer is a close ally of King's, having written a letter of support for a budget council to King just before his appointment. Farmer was also one of only seven English faculty to sign the TAS "Statement of Academic Concern" opposing E306 reforms and has publicly warned of the "politicization" of the English department.[68]

The situation concerning the replacement of Jan Manners as Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Center has also been tainted by Dean King. Although Meacham appointed Elizabeth Fernea as director, King rejected the decision and instead chose a geographer, Bob Holz, as the new director. While Fernea is a respected Middle Eastern scholar and has served as the center's undergraduate advisor and on its executive committee, Holz has almost completely inadequate experience. Holz speaks no Middle Eastern languages and his primary area of research does not concern the Middle East. He has never served on the executive committee and has only minor involvement with the center. Although he has used his satellite mapping technology for research in the Middle East, his research interests do not appear equivalent to Fernea's. Other reasons for King's rejection of Fernea may have to do with her outspoken support of the E306 revisions and her membership on a committee to formulate multicultural curriculum proposals for the College of Liberal Arts appointed by Meacham and participation in the publishing of two books on the subject.[69]

As Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, King demonstrated the extremities of the backlash against not only multicultural reform proposals but institutional academic programs and established academics aligned with the multiculturalism movement. Although the attack on the E306 reforms utilized various explicit and subtle methods to defeat its implementation, King stood out in his use of swift repression.

Tejas: the (Un)Free Press

Soon after it published a scathing cover article – "Rattle of a Very Curious Dean" - in its May 1990 issue on psychology professor and TAS president Joe Horn, indicating his race based theories of intelligence and calling for him to resign as associate dean of Liberal Arts, the Chicana/o student newspaper Tejas came under heavy fire from SAVE (which was formed by members of the YCTs) in 1990. Horn, the faculty advisor to the University Review (formerly the Texas Review), a self-described conservative newspaper funded by the Institute for Educational Affairs (which well discuss more late in the chapter) has also been a faculty mentor of SAVE and spoke at their first meeting in April 1990 and other meetings of the YCTs. SAVE was formed by members of the YCTs and College Republicans and its first president and vice president was Geoff Henley (Daily Texan editor 1992-93) and Scott Gaille of YCT.[70]

SAVE began their counterattack by writing a letter to the vice provost charging that Tejas violated state appropriations code that prohibited state agencies from using state money to bring attention to state employees or officials, in this case Horn. Although Patricia Ohlendorf, associate vice president in the office of the provost, disagreed, she cited Tejas in violation of a "UT rule banning publications the University funds, but does not control." This is certainly no exaggeration, since UT tightly controls each of the media entities it funds through oversight by Texas Student Publications. Tejas is produced by a journalism class and is funded through the Center for Mexican American Studies. Dean Robert Jeffrey of the College of Communications endorsed Ohlendorf's ruling to cut off Tejas' CMAS funding, claiming that "without this policy, any professor on campus with a political interest could gather students, offer them an independent course, and produce a newspaper expressing his political views. Obviously we can't have 100 papers like that on campus without any University control."[71] (emphasis added) Jeffrey is evidently aware of the kinds of reporting that can and has been done without administrative oversig