University of Virginia Library

Coalition Clarifies Demands For Administration

rights than in the preservation of political
power.

Should Mr. Wheatley be unable to take this
action, unquestionably he should resign from
the Board of Visitors. His present equivocal
position makes the University's promise of
equal opportunity seem shallow to the Black
citizens of the state of Virginia.

-Jim Roebuck

Black Assistant Dean

The Coalition's reiteration of the Student
Council request for the naming of a black man
to a permanent position in the Admissions
Office has elicited two standard rebuttals: that
a qualified black man to fill the position cannot
be found, and the hiring of a black
admissions officer would be a case of "reverse
discrimination" and therefore not permissible
on either moral or legal grounds. Both of these
charges are invalid.

Just as when student pressure demanded it,
the administration "found" Mr. Stokes for a
temporary position in the Admissions Office,
as the administration could find a qualified
black man for a permanent position if the
University were to assign a high enough priority
to the search. As to comments concerning the
particular difficulty of finding and convincing a
qualified black man to serve in Admissions, one
is forced to define what is met by the term
"qualified." It seems that the qualifications of
an admissions officer include an ability to
represent the University favorably to prospective
students and to evaluate those students as
regards their ability to contribute to the
University community.

Qualifications do not include advanced
academic degrees or any special academic
reputation. It seems only logical that the best
man to represent the University to black and
culturally deprived students would be a black
man - more likely to be listened to, to be
understood, and to be trusted.

The second charge, that of reverse discrimination,
is the one most often leveled against
the hiring of a black admissions officer. Such a
charge, however, can be easily refuted both by
established fact and by logic. It seems that the
University did not feel that it was either illegal
or immoral to hire Mr. Stokes; the Council and
Coalition have only asked that his position be
made full-time and permanent. Too many other
universities have adopted the practice of using
black men in admissions work to accept the
argument that such an act would result in legal
action.

Beyond that fact is the obvious and
non-discriminatory logic that the best man
should always be hired for the job. The
Admissions Office admits that it needs more
help, and in the recruiting of black and
economically deprived students the best man
will be a black man because of the realities of
trust and communication.

For too long this University has been viewed
by the poor and the black of this state as a
school for the white elite. That time has passed,
and both the black and the white communities
have been slow to recognize the change. A
black assistant dean of admissions would serve
both as a symbol and a proof of that change to
the blacks. More importantly, he would be the
best method of making that change of thought
a reality reflected by increased black enrollment
in the University.

-Martin F. Evans

Faculty Petitions

Two petitions which circulated among the
faculty last week have received nearly 160
signatures each, with only a portion of the
petitions returned.

William A. Elwood of the English department
was responsible for the initiation of the
faculty petitions, one of which supported the
principles of the Coalition's demands, the other
supporting the transitional program for summer
of 1969.

Regarding these petitions, he wrote;

"The two faculty petitions represent a sense
of the faculty members and students who met
on Monday, February 24, as an appropriate
means at this time for faculty views. The
petitions' intent was to generate discussion
among our colleagues and to give them the
opportunity to express agreement with the
spirit of the coalition - student council
proposals while withholding their endorsement
of the letter on one or more points. The
separate petition on the transitional program
we felt to be necessary because it embodied
both the symbolic and the concrete nature of
the proposals.

"Copies of the petition were distributed to
faculty who attended the lunch meeting, who
in turn circulated them in their departments.
We intended wide circulation, but no systematic
polling. Some petitions are outstanding;
they will probably all be returned by mid-week,
at which time we will present them to
President Shannon."

Tabulations of the 160 signatures received
show that most belonged to faculty members of
Assistant Professorial rank and up. Only twelve
of some twenty five departments at the
University have, at this time, returned petitions,
and of those departments on the average of 50
per cent of their membership have signed.

Application Photographs

In considering the issue of whether or not a
photograph and a $10 application fee should be
required of all applicants, we must realize that
we are trying to attract to the University two
groups that have not traditionally been part of
the University community - the black and the
poor.

The "race" question was removed from
application forms several years ago because its
removal left no doubt as to whether or not the
black applicant would be discriminated against.
In this spirit, many universities, at the same
time, made the photograph in the application
optional. The demand presented by the Martin
Luther King chapter of the VCHR and by the
student coalition and other groups was simply
that the photograph be made optional.
Unfortunately, Mr. Shannon seems to have
either misunderstood or evaded the actual
demand in his reply that "discontinuing the
picture would be detrimental to the best
interests of disadvantaged applicants." The
implication from Mr. Shannon's reply and other
administration responses is that they need the
picture so that they can give special preference
to black applicants. If valid, the implication is
that we would be hurting our own cause by not
requiring photographs. (Also, if valid, this
implication contradicts that great principle of
"equal opportunity" used by Mr. Shannon to
reject the hiring of a black assistant admissions
director). However, all evidence indicates that
the University is not using pictures to
discriminate in favor of blacks. They used that
same argument in favor of keeping the pictures
in 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, and 1968, and we
have seen no appreciable increase in the number
of black students accepted over those years. If
this makes us suspicious, what does it do for
the black high school senior who considers
applying here? It tells him that as long as the
photograph is required he need not bother
applying. If however he does believe that it
would aid his chances for acceptance, he may
include a photograph. That is why we ask that
the picture by made optional; and we hope that
in his next reply, Mr. Shannon will respond to
that request rather than to a request that we
did not make.

Regarding the ten dollar application fee, Mr.
Shannon states that the fee is State policy and
that he personally would raise funds to pay for
the application fee (or photograph cost) of any
student who couldn't afford them. We therefore
request a change in the State policy and an
announcement of public support for that
change by the University Administration. The
reasons are simple. Any student applying from
a racial group or economic level that is not
heavily represented at the University will have
serious doubts about his chances for acceptance;
this means he will apply to two or three
other schools. That is probably what most of us
did. That means an outlay of $30 to $40, which
for a family making under $3,000 a year is a
tremendous hardship. Rather than have Mr.
Shannon be burdened with having to decide
whether a student in Roanoke needs the
President's personal help in financing his
application, we propose what we feel to be a
more practical and effective program. The local
guidance counselor or University recruiter
could decide whether or not the applicant was
in need of a waiver of the application fee. If the
applicant is accepted, he or she could be billed
the $10 at registration. This would entail a
minimal financial loss for the University and it
would encourage both poor black and poor and
working class whites to apply who might
otherwise not have been able to apply.

We are not calling for a discontinuance of
either the photograph or the application fee.
We have made reasonable and constructive
proposals and we would like a reply based on
reason, not rhetoric.

-Tom Gardner

Black Athletes

"Super-black", as he may be called, is a rare
commodity. He is tall, strong, and fast. He is
intelligent, with College Board scores hovering
over 1,000. He is, perhaps, Vice President of his
senior class, and the first of his race to crack
the real barriers at his high school. He is selling
a product for which supply is short and demand
is high. Thus far, he has told the buyers from
Virginia, politely of course, to forget it.

Recruiting athletes, whether black or white,
is not a mechanical process. It's a people
process, and its success or failure is determined
by the impressions made by the people
concerned. To often in the past, the
University has been unable to succeed.

Any attack on the problems which block
integration of the athletic program must begin
with the realization that the students, probably
more than the Athletic Department, are
responsible for the bad impressions made by
the University. Any lasting and effective
progress will be primarily the result of a
fundamental change in the social attitudes and
structures of the student body. But the Athletic
Department can do more.

Virginia has always recruited two basic types
of football players. The first is the "blue chip"
type, the kid whose talent and potential are so
obvious that he can choose between dozens of
schools, The second is the type that has the
grades to be admitted, but whose athletic
ability is uncertain. Some of these develop into
fine players. Some don't. This second type of
kid is brought to the attention of the coaches
primarily through the contacts they have
developed in certain areas of the country.
That's why some areas of Pennsylvania, Ohio,
and Virginia produce a preponderant number of
Virginia football players.

The problem has been that Virginia has only
been competing for the blue chip blacks.
Obviously enough, the University hasn't been
doing too well in this respect. And it will
continue to fail until contacts are opened with
the sources of black talent, including the
marginal type.

The Athletic Department, if it wants to tap
that source, will need a black man to help. A
white coach could never make the contacts in
the Negro community that a black man could.
A white coach could never communicate with a
black candidate as effectively as a black man
could. In short, by hiring a black coach, and
increasing the number of black athletes
pursued, the law of averages would begin to
work for the recruiters, rather than against
them.

The football staff fills at least two vacancies
(for graduate assistants) each year. If the
Athletic Department is truly interested in
integration, it ought to be willing to actively
seek to fill one of those positions with a black
man.

-Bob Cullen