A panel titled “Perspectives on the History of Civil Rights at the University of Oregon” brought together varied perspectives and historical context from faculty, students and audience members concerning issues of civil rights and diversity at the University and abroad.
University senior Dan Keller organized the discussion as an extension of his civil rights exhibit, “Civil Rights at the University of Oregon: Past and Present,” now on display in the Knight Library. Keller started the project during fall term as part of a class on “The New Research” presented by English professor Suzanne Clark and University historian and archivist Heather Briston.
The most disappointing aspect of the event for Keller was the turnout. Only about 20 students and community members came.
“I hope the low turnout isn’t a sign of apathy to issues of diversity on campus,” said Keller.
The panel included Clark, Carla Gary, assistant vice provost for institutional equity and diversity; Daniel Pope, associate professor of history; Ed Coleman, professor emeritus of the Department of English; and Jael Anker-Lagos, University student and outreach coordinator at the Multicultural Center.
Keller said the panel discussion was an opportunity to bring his research together.
“I learned so much in (the exhibit’s) creation. It would be a shame not to bring people together and share their wealth,” Keller said.
Gary shared her experiences as a student at the University during the early 1970s, a time when the track team’s mascot was a black duck with an afro that ran the hurdles.
“When I hear people say ‘the South,’ I assume they mean south of the Canadian border,” Gary said.
Gary assured the audience that growing up in the Northwest was not paradise. Her home in Portland was smoke bombed and picketed during her high school years. She also discussed “Project 75,” a University effort to encourage more ethnically diverse enrollment, the community’s concern about the arrival of African American students on campus, and her success as the University’s first black cheerleader.
Although the United States may have come a long way from the days of Gary’s childhood, Pope reminded the audience that, as of 2005, there are only four tenure-related black faculty members at the University.
That number is up from three in 1975, Pope said.
Pope discussed the University curriculum and the evolution and stagnancy of its diversity component. The general mood of the panel was hopeful for the new diversity plan, seeing it as another step in this long journey to maintain awareness of our recent history.
Clark stressed the importance of understanding and maintaining historical context while recounting a recent research trip to Jackson State University, the site of student protests and shootings on May 14, 1970. Clark was shocked to find that current Jackson State students could not direct her to the memorial and did not know that the holes all over the women’s dormitory were from bullets.
“The vanishing of history is really terrifying, and this is the significance of this exhibit,” Clark said of Keller’s project. “The forgetting of (history) is a violent act in itself.”
Panel looks at past, present of diversity in local context
Daily Emerald
May 6, 2007
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