Tufts University - Jumbo Yearbook (Medford, MA)

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In The Eighties

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Photo S. Wilner BY STACY MASON F our years ago, the Tufts Univer sity freshman class matriculated, and each anticipated the future of their college experience. At the same time, Ameri¬ ca was embarking on a new decade and wonder¬ ing what the 1980’s would represent. The decade unfolded and it became clear that the eighties would affect certain changes throughout the na¬ tion and at Tufts as well. Yet there were certain other facets of campus life which could not be uprooted as easily. College

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Photo R. Beck Ph0t0 R Beck E merging at the forefront of Amer¬ ican political change in the 1980’s was the conservative trend which pervaded the country as a new Re¬ publican administration was elected. This wave of more traditional values and poli¬ cies reached Medford quickly and the radi¬ calism characteristic of college campuses in the 1970’s faded. A chapter of ROTC reopened on campus, the first time since the 1960’s; and a right-wing newspaper, The Primary Source, was published on campus. Yet the liberal students on campus were not going to let this conservatism dominate. In¬ stead, they fought back with The Meridian, a liberal newspaper, and a society based on liberal politics, the Tufts Democrats. And perhaps most importantly, the Tufts student body did not let this swing toward tradition suppress our rights to the freedom of speech and protest. When Peter Dreier was denied tenure, apparently on the ba¬ sis of his fervent belief in social justice, students launched a three-day protest which received na¬ tion-wide attent ion. And when the highly con¬ troversial CIA came to Tufts for recruitment purposes, they were greeted with a group of an¬ gry students crying out against CIA actions in Central America. The 1980’s also represented the height of the nuclear arms race. Both superpowers continued to build and deploy nuclear weaponry with little to no negotiation on the issue of a freeze. Tufts’ opinion was generally split: conservative stu¬ dents defended the current arms build-up while liberals clamored for the dismantling of nuclear weaponry. Yet both factions agreed that Tufts was not an appropriate site for the presence of nuclear arms. With the active support of Presi¬ dent Mayer, Tufts was proudly declared a nucle¬ ar-free zone. The new politics infiltrated our campus, but they could only go so far. 6 Photo R Beck