Apartheid. USA 1988

January 19, 1988:

At Stanford University at Palo Alto in California, everyone still talks of the day nearly a year ago when some 500 students, on a march with the Reverend Jesse Jackson, came up with a slogan for the next generation. It expressed no hostility to the likes of Plato, Saint Augustine, Rousseau and John Stuart Mill, all of whom are on Stanford's current list of required reading for freshmen. But in claiming a kind of equal time for minority contributions to American civilization, their chant: ‘Hey, hey ho ho, Western culture has to go’, does reflect a demand that is now expected to be accepted by the faculty in the weeks ahead. Responding to the charge that the core reading list reflects what some have referred to as a ‘European-Western and male bias’ and what others have called ‘sexist and racist stereotypes’, the Stanford faculty seems likely to approve a measure that would eliminate the Western culture course that is required of all freshmen. The course, which has been offered since 1980, is based on a list of 15 acknowledged masterpieces of philosophy and literature. In its place would be a new yearlong requirement, called ‘culture, ideas, and values,’ that would include the study of at least one non-Western culture and works by women, minorities and persons of color.^206.

Muslims with walkie-talkies and solemn stares, some of them armed off-duty officers, have started to patrol part of the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn in another initiative to rid the community of crime and drugs, particularly crack. The patrols of men from the At-Taqwa mosque, at Bedford Avenue and Fulton Street, are backed up by

206. The New York Times, from a report by Richard Bernstein

[p. 163]

police officers from the 79th Precinct station house. The 24 hour patrol for a 40-day period received support from merchants, community leaders and residents. In a separate action the police raided 12 locations along Fulton Street and made 32 arrests. About 15 Muslims patrolled a three-block area early yesterday to ensure that the crack houses remained closed.^207.

At Wellesley College near Boston a conference was held to seek answers as racial bias on campuses around Massachusetts was on the rise. Representatives of more than 30 New England colleges and universities assembled under the sponsorship of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and the Society Organized Against Racism. An increase in the number of racial and anti-Semitic incidents on campuses is forcing soul-searching at many of the nation's institutions of higher learning. Many educators and academicians have often regarded universities, with an emphasis on intellectual and moral leadership, as relatively free of racist taint. But now, there is a growing, if grudging, acknowledgement that racism is part of campus life.

The conferees addressed emerging forms of campus prejudice, including quotas for Asian-American applicants, harassment of Jewish women and growing hostility towards homosexuals, according to Sally J Greenberg, civil rights counsel for the eastern states of the Anti-Defamation League.

Some of the Conference recommendations were: Making clear to all how the university and college leadership feels about its commitment to racial tolerance; building into the curriculum multicultural courses; enhancing support for affirmative action programs, including holding administrators and department heads accountable for carrying out policies; hiring more minority faculty and graduate students; focusing on racism and intolerance among faculty members.^208.

207. The New York Times, from a report by Thomas Morgan

208. The New York Times, from a report by Allan R Gold