University of California Los Angeles: Encyclopedia II - University of California Los Angeles - Activism

University of California Los Angeles - Activism

In 1995, 2001, and 2004, Mother Jones magazine named UCLA in its annual listing of the Top 10 Activist Campuses, reflecting the rallying spirit of its student bodies over the years. The activist tradition of UCLA can be traced to 1934, when Provost Ernest Moore declared UCLA "the worst hotbed of communism in the U.S," and suspended 5 members of the student government for allegedly “using their offices to assist the revolutionary activities of the National Student League, a Communist organization which has bedeviled the University for some months.” Over 3,000 students gathered to protest in Royce Quad, and campus police officers, attempting to silence the speakers, were thrown into some bushes. The crowd dispersed before any arrests were made, and University President Robert Sproul later reinstated the students.[3]

While student activism at UCLA in the 1940s demonstrated support for the Allied effort in World War II, in the 1960s the UCLA campus emerged as a staging area for massive protests against the Vietnam War. The protests at UCLA began in 1967, when over 500 students protested the recruitment of graduates by Dow Chemicals, which produced napalm, an incendiary chemical used in the war. The protests escalated as the war continued.

During the 1969-1970 academic year, various activist organizations were infiltrated by federal agents who provoked conflicts between them. On January 17, 1969 UCLA students and Black Panther Party members John Huggins, 23, and Bunchy Carter, 26, were slain in Campbell Hall by members of United Slaves, a rival black power organization headed by Maulana Karenga. Later, it was reported that members of the FBI had infiltrated both groups and exacerbated tensions between them as part of the COINTELPRO program.

Later in 1969, the UC regents fired Angela Davis, a radical feminist and lecturer in the Philosophy Department, for openly identifying as a member of the Communist Party. Outraged faculty threatened to withhold grades if Davis was not reinstated, and nearly 2,000 students crammed into Royce Hall's auditorium when Davis delivered her first lecture despite the regents' decision to remove credit for the class. The overflowing audience gave the 25-year-old professor a standing ovation. On October 22, Vice Chancellor Charles E. Young complied a state superior court order overruling the regents' decision by restoring course credit to Davis's class. Eight months later, the regents again dismissed Davis from the UCLA faculty.[4]

On May 5, 1970 students protesting the Kent State shootings marched through campus and vandalized several buildings, including an ROTC building. A fire caused $5,000 worth of damage, destroying part of Murphy Hall. Chancellor Young declared a State of Emergency and summoned the LAPD on campus; 74 arrests were made and 12 people reported injuries. This demonstration and many others at UC campuses throughout the state caused then-Governor Ronald Reagan to shut down the state's colleges and universities for the first time in California's history.

Campus political debate in the 1980s centered primarily on the South African government's apartheid policies, the U.S.'s Central American policy, as well as the implementation of affirmative action in the state. In the 1990s, student activists tended to focus on university and statewide concerns, such as union recognition, the expansion of the Chicano/a Studies Center, Proposition 187, which denied social services to undocumented immigrants, and Proposition 209, which ended affirmative action in California.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Activism", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki