EchoVib

It was Parents’ Weekend at Cornell University, where 2,000 visitors would soon hear President James A. Perkins give a timely speech entitled “The Stability of the University.” He never gave it. Shortly before 6 a.m. on Saturday, 120 black students seized Willard Straight Hall—the first crisis in a week of chaos that almost destroyed Cornell and deeply alarmed universities throughout the U.S.

Shouting “Fire!” at the top of their lungs, the black guerrillas swept through Straight Hall, Cornell’s student union, rousing 30 frightened parents from their beds and sending both them and 40 employees into the chill morning air. While some blacks guarded the entrances with fire hoses, others barged into the campus radio station, grabbed a microphone and proclaimed the seizure as a protest against Cornell’s “racist attitudes.”

Countermeasures. Rushing to the blacks’ support, white members of Students for a Democratic Society set up a picket line outside the building. University officials tried to negotiate with the blacks, but were firmly turned away. Determined to recapture “The Straight,” 20 whites, most of them from Delta Upsilon fraternity, whose membership is entirely Caucasian, smashed through a window and scuffled with the blacks. They were beaten back.

By nightfall, rumor had it that eight carloads of armed fraternity men were about to hit the hall. Negro Graduate Student Harry Edwards, organizer of last year’s Olympic boycott, advised the blacks to take defensive countermeasures. In the dark, they smuggled in a small arsenal of rifles, shotguns and knives. Next day Cornell was treated to the Castroite spectacle of armed students, draped with ammo belts, marching defiantly out of their stronghold.

How did it happen? Ironically, Cornell had been recruiting ghetto blacks since 1965—and soon found itself faced with mounting Negro militancy as a result. At first, Perkins’ administration yielded to many of their demands. It gave blacks a house for an Afro-American Center, set up a private dormitory for Negro coeds, and planned a black studies curriculum. A Quaker and champion of liberal causes, Perkins even let two blacks fly to New York in the university’s plane to buy bongo drums for last year’s Malcolm X Day ceremonies. But he rejected the major Negro demand: that the program of Afro-American studies be made into a separate college entirely run by blacks. As he saw it, Cornell would no longer be a true university if its trustees and faculty surrendered such control to students.

Repeated Taunts. Although the blacks number only 250 students out of Cornell’s enrollment of 13,500, they responded with relentless agitation and tactical skill. Last December seven Negroes rampaged through the administration building, where they brandished toy pistols and overturned vending machines. The demonstrators were immediately called before a student-faculty disciplinary committee. But they refused to appear on the ground that Cornell could hardly act as an impartial judge of “political action” against the university itself. When the committee threatened to suspend the six unless they showed up, the blacks turned the tables—they cited an obscure by-law empowering the committee to try errants in absentia. In sum, they claimed, the threat of suspension without a trial was in itself illegal as well as racist.

With the impasse came a rising incidence of racial rhetoric and insult. Black students were subjected to repeated taunts. Negro leaders vowed to set up their own black studies center without the university’s assistance. Townspeople were disturbed by the Negroes’ increasing aggressiveness. When a cross was burned in front of the Negro coeds’ dormitory, militants warned that they were determined to “protect our black women.” What angered the blacks even more was the decision of the student-faculty committee to “reprimand” three of the December demonstrators after all. In retaliation, the blacks seized Straight Hall.

As their siege continued into the second day in an atmosphere of imminent bloodshed, Perkins decided he had only one recourse. He gave in to the black militants’ demands for a general amnesty—for the December demonstrators as well as those holed up in the student union. Proudly holding up their guns, the blacks marched out of the student union and ended their siege after 34 hours. Visibly relieved, Perkins commented: “A shattering experience.”

One Hour to Live. Many faculty members concurred. Outraged by what they saw as capitulation to brute force, they refused by an overwhelming vote to go along with the administration’s peace pact. Said Historian Clinton Rossiter: “If the ship goes down, I’ll go with it, as long as it represents reason and order. But if it’s converted to threats and fear, I’ll leave it and take a job as a night watchman in a bakery.”

However commendable, the faculty’s unwillingness to negotiate under the gun brought a new flood of passion. What the majority had overlooked was another perception: in the view of some professors and students, the blacks had been treated unfairly by Cornell’s judicial system and had armed themselves only in self-defense. The blacks skillfully played on those feelings.

Joined by a few radical professors, S.D.S. organized a huge rally in the Cornell fieldhouse, at which 6,000 whites threatened to stage their own demonstrations. Black leaders flatly refused to reopen talks with either administration or faculty, and student opinion seemed to be swinging to their side. In a wild eruption of demagoguery, Black Senior Tom Jones shouted: “Cornell has only one hour to live!” In the past, he cried, “it’s been the blacks who did all the dying. Now’s the time when the pigs are going to die. James Perkins is going to be dealt with. The faculty is going to be dealt with.”

As the speeches heated up, the crisis took on more menacing proportions. Perkins had declared Cornell in “a situation of emergency,” and on his initiative, more than 350 armed men—mostly sheriff’s deputies from nearby counties—were deployed to Ithaca, ready to move onto the campus. A wing of the local hospital was evacuated for expected emergency cases. Ithaca was seized with wild rumors, including one that students would try to take over the plant of a local small-arms manufacturer.

Simultaneously, Perkins was trying to cool things off. He suspended regular classes and urged students and faculty to discuss the crisis. Behind the scenes, the administration explained why it had given in to the blacks. “These were frightened and paranoid people in a fortress on this campus,” one university official told the faculty. “A delay [in an agreement] would have meant bloodshed and death. The university can survive, even through concessions obtained by coercion and force, but not through murder.” By Wednesday noon, the faculty was ready to reconsider its decision. In a complete reversal of the original ballot, the faculty now voted to back the agreement.

Disgust and Euphoria. The flip-flop disgusted some leading professors, who accused Cornell of “selling out to terrorists.” At least a dozen pledged to suspend teaching until the campus was free of guns, a demand that Perkins seemed unable to satisfy. Three scholars resigned, including Allan P. Sindler, chairman of the government department and a onetime civil-rights leader at Duke, who charged his colleagues with a lack of “integrity, guts, common sense and dignity.” In contrast, English Professor M. H. Abrams supported the reverse vote as the only rational course. “To stand on legality, to temporize, would be disastrous,” he said. “The only thing to do is wipe the slate clean.” Historian Rossiter attributed his own change of heart in part to Perkins’ appeals. “There was pressure,” he explained, sounding slightly brainwashed. “But it was the only thing we could do to preserve this university as a place of reason. I can live with ferment but not with violence.”

By week’s end Cornell was in a state of euphoric exhaustion. Despite their misgivings, most professors seemed satisfied that Cornell had averted bloodshed. Many students envisioned a new era of racial good feeling. Robert W. Purcell, chairman of the board of trustees, said the “silent center” had spoken, and he insisted that “Cornell has come through without danger and strengthened.” Yet disturbing questions remain: If radical student power dominates a university, what happens to professors who disagree with it? More broadly, if a university is threatened with disorder, how far can it compromise before it loses all integrity? Is Cornell a symbol of racial progress or a disaster for American universities?

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