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Page 9 text:
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5 Afro leaders postponed the planned shutdown of the site and called for a university-wide rally to discuss the police invasion and to organize a student strike until Afro ' s demands had been met. At a second mass meeting Thursday evening, Afro announced new tactics and solicited support for an all-day mill-in at Ballou Hall. Students responded positively to the suggestions and massed in front of Ballou Hall the following morning. Afro instruc ted the students to occupy the offices of key members of the administration who were making decisions on the construction problem and to demand explanations for the massive police invasion and for the continuing refusal of the administration to accede to Afro ' s reasonable demands. After several hours of student-adminis¬ trator confrontations, several administrators, including the president, were ap¬ parently shaken and asked for a meeting with Afro leaders. In a compromise proposal, the administration offered a temporary solution to the demand for twenty per cent minority workers. The administration would hire and maintain on its payroll the necessary number of black construction workers until it could persuade the Volpe Co. to put them on the job. Afro rejected the proposal since there were sufficient jobs already open on the project and since it did not guarantee employment on the site, which is essential for admission to the construction unions. On Monday morning Afro resumed the mill-in at Ballou Hall. The same offices were taken over; attempts were made to meet with the same decision¬ makers. Petty destruction by students was alledged by administrators. That afternoon Afro led supporters from the building and set up a picket line in front of the main entrance to the construction site. Some 250 black and white students carried placards pnd chanted slogans demanding more jobs for blacks and the removal of riot police from campus. After suspending actions on Tuesday (Veteran ' s Day), Afro broadened its attack to include the Volpe Co. On Wednesday morning Afro organized picket¬ ing of Volpe offices in Malden. Afro also decided to escalate the pressure on the administration by disrupting the vital processes of the university. When sup¬ porters returned to campus from picketing that afternoon, Afro announced its decision to seize and hold the university computer center until the adminis¬ tration acceded to Afro ' s demands. Afro led supporters to the computer center and began the obstructive sit-in. Despite pleas from the administration to leave the building, students refused to move from the offices and hallways until police came or the administration yielded to Afro. Several hours later an attorney for the university delivered an offer from the administration. The administration proposed that it would guarantee the im¬ mediate hiring of three black tokens (two workers and a clerk of the works) and that it would give assurances that the remaining numbers of minority workers needed to reach twenty percent would be hired within a two week period. In return Afro should suspend further protest. Afro considered the offer and drafted a Memorandum of Understanding. In the Memorandum, Afro reduced the grace period to one week, accepted the guarantee of jobs, urged that job orders be sent to UCCW, created a monitoring mechanism, and requested the administration begin negotiations with unions for a WDL Training Program. If the administration accepted the Memorandum, Afro would call a one week moratorium on demonstrations. After qualifying and weakening the Memorandum, the administration re¬ submitted the Memorandum to Afro. The Memorandum was accepted by Afro and the seven day moratorium was called. With serious misgivings, Afro ex¬ tended the additional time to the administration to negotiate with the Volpe Co. an end to discrimination against minority workers on the construction project. Afro used the time to thoroughly reassess its tactics and strategy and to plan future actions to escalate pressure on the administration. Afro honored its part of the agreement and did not resume demonstrations. For their part, the administration has yet to fulfill its major obligations. More importantly, the administration has deliberately and repeatedly violated both the letter and the spirit of several provisions of the Memorandum. The adminis¬ tration conspired with the Volpe Co. and the brick mason union on two occasions to fire black masons just before they became eligible to join the union. The administration failed to increase the percentage on minority workers to twenty per cent — the percentage actually dropped during the weeks that followed. Job orders to UCCW for new openings on the project were not seen forthcoming. Consequently, Afro discontinued the moratorium on November 20 . The dispute that occurred on the Tufts campus during the fall of 1969 was an educational experience for students. During those hurly-burly days in November, the younger members of the Tufts Community had to come to grips with one of the most pressing problems on the American scene: racial dis¬ crimination in the construction trades. The actions that were taken by the various groups that were involved in the situation have had many ramifications in the Boston area. The Black students on the Tufts campus learned that much can be ac¬ complished whenthey close ranks to face the common enemy. Not only did the Afro-American students discover that unity among themselves is beneficial, but that by coordinating activities with Black students on other campuses, and with workers back in the community, they appreciably increase their power. The methods of confronting a university administration on the issue of minority hiring were quickly picked up by Black students at other schools. During December, the Organization for Black Unity at Harvard University mounted a number of demonstrations on the issue of minority employment on its campus. Because of the actions of O.B.U., the Harvard administration negotiated a construction contract that required that a substantial number of Blacks had to be hired. Even though this contract is deficient in several areas, it is still a precedent-setting document. Many White students at Tufts realized, for the time, that the administration put monetary things above human values. The Tufts administration, instead of closing down the construction site and thereby demonstrating to the entire world that it supported the struggle against racial discrimination, prefered to continue work on the dormitory while it filed for a declaratory judgement in the courts. According to a number of legal experts, the declaratory judgement stood very little chance in court. Even if it was successful, it would take over two years, by which time the dormitory would have been long completed. When the students. White and Black, tried to take the only effective action, closing down the site, the administration secured the services of two hundred police¬ men, armed with shotguns, clubs, tear gas and dogs. They kept the students off the site, but not the workers. At that moment, it was obvious to everyone that the administration cared more for the dormitory than the well-being of its students. Tufts is noted for the quality of its education in the classroom. During the fall of 1969, the construction site was the scene of the best course in Urban Politics in the Boston area. Daniel Coleman Afro has met with the administration since the moratorium was rescinded. Discussions focused on the treatment of black workers on the site and the lack of progress in negotiating compliance with Volpe Co. Afro also joined the College Construction Coalition in pressing demands concertedly on four uni¬ versities which joined with Tufts in the Inter-University Committee. Investi¬ gation has begun into the construction of the new medical complex by Tufts. The Labor Coordinating Committee
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Page 8 text:
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4 The following statement on Construction at Tufts University was written by the Labor Co-ordinating Committee of the Black Student Federation, and was submitted to the 1970 Tufts Annual as a factual account of the events this Fall in the dispute over alledged discriminatory hiring practices by the Volpe Construction Company. The construction conflict was a protest called for by the students of Tufts University, who, in the spring of 1968, asked that the black enrollment be increased by forty students in the class of 1972. Black enrollment increased again in the class of 1973. Tufts has over 100 Black students now, mostly freshmen and sophomores. There are no near-peer groups at Tufts to guide these incoming Blacks. Where has their leadership come from? The New Urban League? The United Community Construction Workers? The Harvard Afro Society? Or some well-adapted linear pecking order of black revolutionaries? We have as an example for these people the childish and destructive actions of a black female leader who was quite vociferous during the controversy. This person destroyed public and private property in Dean Chayes ' office during the mill-in, responding to a challenge regarding these actions by asserting that the question of property destruction was up to the individual. One can only speculate about the stopped toilet in North Hall and other such occurrences that seemed to crop up during the protests. Not only the incoming blacks faced with this kind of leadership, but they are confronted with a choice between being labeled an uncle tom if they do not join or support the tight-lipped, totalitarian structure of the Afro-American Society itself. Must fascism be fought with fascism? The Tufts 1970 Annual recognizes the fact that the Volpe Co. does support unfair hiring practices by its unions. It does not believe, however, that a sufficient choice of leadership and direction is offered the Blacks at Tufts. William Ross Humphreys Allen B. Koenig CONSTRUCTION AT TUFTS UNIVERSITY By the LABOR CO-ORDINATING COMMITTEE of the BLACK STUDENT FEDERATION January 1, 1970 Since September, several black student organizations have raised disturbing questions about discrimination against black workers by universities in the Boston area. At two universities, Tufts and Harvard, black student organizations with the support of the black community led militant actions against university policies which deny equal pay and equal job opportunities to black workers. Blacks at Tufts and Harvard forcibly shutdown construction projects and seized and disrupted administration buildings in efforts to dramatize the refusal of administrations to end their racist employment policies. The serious, widespread concern about the employment opportunities and conditions of black workers shown by black students is contributing to a black student movement relating directly and meaningfully to the survival needs of black people. The struggle at Tufts began in September, when the Afro-American Society established a Labor Committee to investigate the apparent discrimination against black workers on the construction of a new dormitory. After receiving the preliminary findings of the Labor Committee that only a token number of blacks were employed (two identified out of about 80), Afro sent a letter to the president of the university protesting the denial of equal employment oppor¬ tunities to blacks and requesting immediate actions by his administration. The letter was followed by a visit to the university provost, who confirmed that blacks were being discriminated against, but who was vague about what cor¬ rective steps the administration would take. The Labor Committee broadened and intensified its inv estigation. Com¬ mittee members joined the Labor Co-ordinating Committee of the Black Stu¬ dent Federation where they met students from other colleges working on similar employment problems. Committee members also contacted two organizations in Roxbury, the New Urban League, and the United Community Construction Workers, which have been actively involved in struggles against building con¬ tractors and the construction trade unions. With the assistance of Leo Fletcher, Director of UCCW and Martin Gopen, Director of Labor NUL, Afro formulated a list of demands on the Tufts administration. The demands included: at least twenty per cent minority workers on the job, job referrals to UCCW, aggressive recruitment of black sub-contractors, joint Afro-Administration monitoring of the hiring and treatment of black workers, and the immediate discussions about affirmative action programs on new construction projects. While Afro intensified its persuasive efforts with administrators, there was little movement on the part of the administration or its contractor to hire additional black workers. Tufts President Burton Hallowed selected a liberal dean to negotiate with its racist contractor, Volpe Construction Company. Initial negotiations between the administration and the Volpe Company pro¬ duced a vague agreement that the number of minority workers should be increased, that goals for minority workers should be set, and that a study of the labor pool should be made by the federal government. Consequently, Afro submitted the list of demands to the administration on October 20, and demanded full implementation within two weeks. Afro insisted that the admin¬ istration persuade or compel its contractor to comply with the demands. If its contractor were not in compliance within two weeks, the administration should suspend payment on the contract. The administration responded that the demands were reasonable and realistic but refused to accept the time limit. They agreed to press the demands with their contractor, but rejected the request that Volpe Co. be financially penalized if it did not comply. Immediately after submitting the demands, Afro began developing mobil¬ ization plans for pressure tactics when the two weeks expired. Several days before the deadline, Afro voted to shutdown the construction site and to strike classes when the demands were not met. Appeals for support were also made to other black student organizations and to organizations in the Boston Black community. Monday, November 3, was deadline for implementing Afro ' s demands. That afternoon, attorneys for the university initiated legal proceedings against Volpe Co. in the Middlesex County Court. Through petitioning the court for a Declaratory Judgment on parts of its contract with the builder, the admin¬ istration hoped to create the illusion of legal pressure. Tufts attorneys peti¬ tioned the court to determine whether Volpe had violated the affirmative action clause in their contract and if the contractor had, to requ est immediate remedial action by the court. Despite Afro ' s insistence that the legal proceedings were, at best, time-consuming and ineffective, the administration repeatedly publicized the actions as precedent-setting and as the most promising of the legal alter¬ natives available to them. Afro reiterated its demand that the administration immediately suspend payment to Volpe until he ended his discriminatory hiring practices. The administration refused adamantly, arguing that suspension of payment would breech the contract with Volpe and would expose the university to substantial risk in a breech of contract suit brought by the Volpe Co. Afro warned the administration of the probable consequences of its refusal to take effective action and continued to prepare to shutdown the construction site. Afro members were informed of the administration ' s intransigence and decided how they would seize and hold the site. Efforts were intensified to recruit support from black students at other colleges and from organizations in the black community. On Wednesday morning, November 5, approximately 150 Afro members and supporters trudged through rain and mud to the construction site. Arriving before the white workers, blacks blockaded the entrances and waited for the workers to come. Throughout the morning, dozens of other blacks joined the ranks of those holding the site while the number of white workers standing outside the fence steadily grew. To demands from white workers that they be permitted to work, blacks chanted twenty per cent blacks or whites don ' t work. Despite threats from white workers and their attempts to break through the barricades, blacks held the site until noon, when workers were informed that they would be paid for the day and began to leave. Wednesday afternoon, Tufts ' attorneys went back to court to seek an injunction against protesting students and supporters. The judge acted swiftly on the bill of complaint filed by the attorneys and granted a sweeping Tem¬ porary Restraining Order. Under penalty of being in contempt of court, the T.R.O. forbade the obstruction of the construction site or any other building on campus, prohibited interference with the peaceful use, enjoyment of, and occupancy by the university any person and any actions which would disrupt the orderly processes of the university. To enforce the T.R.O. the administration recruited some 200 riot policemen. Beginning early Wednesday evening, large numbers of policemen invaded the campus. Several officers were posted in front of the Afro-American Center, located near campus. By Thursday morning, the construction site was com¬ pletely encircled with riot-equipped policemen, most wearing no badges and some toting shotguns. In seeking the repressive court order against students and occupying the campus with riot police, the administration openly aligned itself with the forces of racism and reaction (Volpe Co. and the construction trade unions). The administration also demonstrated its willingness to use whatever force necessary to suppress attempts by blacks to attack blatantly racist practices on campus. Moreover, the administration clearly showed that its actions were governed by a compulsion to avoid financial risk and by a strong desire to collect revenues from the completed dormitory. Then, perhaps, came their legal and moral obligations to insure equal opportunities to black people.
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