Several College professors encouraged students to take organized political action against racism at a panel discussion sponsored by Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity last night in the Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences.
The professors said Dartmouth students should follow the example of students at the University of Michigan, who responded to racial incidents in the spring of 1987 through "effective political organization," according to Sociology Professor Steven Cornish.
Approximately 60 students attended the panel discussion, which featured Cornish, Sociology Professor Misagh Parsa and Drama Professor Victor Walker.
As background for the discussion, representatives from Alpha Phi Alpha showed a movie titled "Racism 101," which chronicled incidents of racism at Michigan in 1987 and Dartmouth in 1982 and 1983.
The movie showed the University of Michigan "torn by racial strife" in the spring of 1987 when a student called the campus radio station and told racist jokes about African-Americans.
Two weeks earlier, a student had slipped a racist flyer under the door of a meeting of African-American women.
In the film, Michigan students said people were labeling these occurrences as "isolated incidents," but such events were taking place on campuses across the country.
As a response to these incidents, African-American students at Michigan formed the Black Action Movement to unite and protest for change.
BAM gave the administration five days to consider its demands, which called for an immediate granting of tenure for African-American professors, money for a black student union and more black enrollment.
BAM flew the Rev. Jesse Jackson into Michigan and held a midnight meeting with him, and Jackson agreed to represent them in front of the administration.
Although Michigan's president did not believe in quotas for enrollment, he agreed to establish a black quota of 12 percent of the student population.
The president also agreed to appropriate money for a black student union and to give incentives to African-American faculty members.
At last night's discussion, Cornish said the actions of the Michigan students in 1987 were effective and suggested a "Michigan strategy for Dartmouth."
Calvin Daniels '96, former president of Alpha Phi Alpha, said although the events in the movie seem outdated, similar events are occurring on the Dartmouth campus.
Walker said students need to have a plan to combat racism and to be willing to "stay on it for the long haul."
To sustain a long-term reaction, Walker said students must have an agenda and put forth a struggle.
Walker said, "If you look at the history of racism, you will see a history of ebbs and flows."
He cited the 1896 Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the doctrine of "separate but equal" and the 1954 Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, which overturned this principle, as an example of this ebb and flow.
Walker also compared racism to a virus, saying it "can lie dormant for a while" but is still always there.
The segment of "Racism 101" devoted to Dartmouth was about The Dartmouth Review, an off-campus conservative weekly.
The movie showed excerpts from a satire of black students at Dartmouth published in The Review in 1982, titled "Dis sho' ain't no jive, bro."
It also focused on a clash between The Review and Music Professor William Cole in 1983.
The Review labeled Cole's Music 2 course as the easiest course on campus and also insulted him in print. In addition, writers for The Review taped phone calls with Cole and allegedly provoked him in person.
