University of Virginia Library

SDS-SSOC Seek Resignation
Of Visitor C. Stuart Wheatley

A Large Crowd Of Students Assembled On The Lawn In Front Of The President's Office Last Saturday

SDS-SSOC Members, Fraternity Men, And Student Leaders Protest Actions Of The Board Of Visitors

Student interaction with the
Board of Visitors reached a new
plateau of intensity this past
weekend with the occurrence of
several encounters between
members of the Board and
members of the student body who
demanded, among other things, the
removal of Chase Stuart Wheatley
from the Board.

Mr. Wheatley was one of the
leaders of the "massive resistance"
movement to Federal school
integration in the late 1950's.

In reaction to this information
on Mr. Wheatley, as well as the
present functions of the Board of
Visitors and wage conditions of the
non-academic employees of the
University, Robert Rosen, a
fourth-year student and former
editor of Rapier attempted to form
a coalition among various student
leaders.

A meeting of these students was
held yesterday morning in Mr.
Rosen's room on the Lawn to
decide on "the most responsible
course of action."

Included in this meeting were:
Ed Hayes, president of the
Inter-Fraternity Council; Walker
Chandler, Tony Sherman, and T.
Jackson Lears, all Student Council
representatives; Richard Gwathmey,
editor of The Cavalier Daily;
George Shipley, president of the
University Union; Pieter Schenkkan,
vice-chair of counselors; as
well as representatives from the
Experimental University and the
Virginia Interfaith Action
Committee.

Friday evening the Student
Council and the IFC sponsored a
reception with the Board of
Visitors to which the members of
the IFC Governing Board, Student
Council representatives, and the Ad
Hoc Committee for an Open
Meeting with the Board of Visitors
were invited.

Because of the length of the
committee meetings, the members
of the Board were almost an hour
late to the reception. Many of the
student participants expressed
dissatisfaction with the responses
they received from the Visitors,
contending that they avoided
discussion on integration, pay raises
for bottom-scale employees, and
greater student influence in future
decisions of student affairs.

Students agreed, however, that
the meeting had been valuable in
that it allowed both groups,
students and Visitors, to gain a new
prospectus on the nature of their
relationship. Many who were there
strongly supported the
continuation of these type of
meetings, feeling that some of the
reluctance of both groups to discuss
the issues with total honesty was
due to the novelty of the situation.

From the realm of social
confrontation, the scene shifted to
the Saturday 11 a.m. meeting of
the SDS-SSOC on the Lawn to
receive sort of a reply to the letter
that had been sent to the members
of the Board. The letter contained
four demands; first, that the Board
of Visitors become representative
of the ethic, social, and economic
background of the State; that
Board member C. Stuart Wheatley
resign in light of his participation in
the massive resistance in Virginia to
the integration of schools.

Third, they demanded that
William Samuel Potter publicly
oppose the repression of the Black
community in Wilmington
Delaware, allegedly at the hands of
the DuPont family of which Mr.
Potter is an in-law; and finally, that
the Board take the first step in
supporting a wage increase program
for the non-academic staff of the
University.