#346: A “Small” Crisis Recalled

EXCERPT:
Sometimes small events carry big lessons.

This week marks the anniversary of a sudden crisis that nearly shoved a small Catholic college off its foundations. That crisis, as chronicled in Diane Brady’s book Fraternity (due January 3 from Random House), demonstrated how complex moral conflicts can be solved: by the relentless healing efforts of the participants.

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In hindsight, the recipe for the brewing crisis seems obvious. Picture the context of fall 1969, when US campuses were tinder-boxes for protests over the Vietnam War, civil rights, and social justice in general.

Add a nationwide, months-long strike by General Electric workers. (It happens my father was the local president of one of the striking unions; I ended up substitute teaching two days a week and still needed a waiver on my tuition bill until year’s end).

When GE recruiters arrived at Holy Cross on December 10, student protesters blockaded the interview rooms, declaring (1) their support for the striking workers and (2) their opposition to GE’s “war profiteering” defense contracts. The dean of students ordered protesters to disperse. When they ignored him, he asked the recruiters to leave and told his staff to round up the usual suspects.

The trouble is, that roundup, which yielded 16 names, included 4 out of the 5 black students participating. When pressed to explain why 80% of the blacks were targeted, while 80% of the white participants were not, the dean explained that the black students were “highly identifiable”!

When a judicial board met to consider charges against the named students, the Black Student Union (BSU) convened an emergency meeting, unanimously agreed that racism was involved, and sent an officer to advocate for the black students.

He returned to the BSU convinced the board was unsympathetic, so the group began to consider its options. Among the actions discussed, the option finally agreed upon came at the suggestion of one student, future US Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas: if the board refused amnesty, all black students would simply leave Holy Cross. For good.

Apprised of this, Fr. John Brooks (mentor to black students and future Holy Cross president) invited two BSU officers to a 1:30 AM meeting with President Father Raymond Swords (himself Brooks’ mentor), but Brooks failed to broker a “middle ground” all could accept: Swords was not prepared to overrule the judicial board.

One hour later, at 2:40 AM on Friday, December 12, the judicial board voted to suspend all 16 students for the academic year. BSU officers immediately announced a press conference for 10:00 AM. Appearing before 600 students, BSU spokesman (and later 2006 National Lawyer of the Year) Ted Wells decried the board’s decision, and said the black students felt compelled to walk away from Holy Cross. Then the black students picked up their luggage and departed en masse.

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During Saturday and Sunday, December 13-14, the president’s advisory board held marathon sessions, during which Fr. Swords expressed no opinions but absorbed the entire debate.

Meanwhile a campus-wide forum in the student center’s main ballroom staged a parallel marathon. A town-meeting style “open microphone” allowed dozens of faculty and students to comment on the crisis, its implications, and the options for responding.

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At 6:30 PM on Sunday, December 14, Fr. Swords arrived at the ballroom forum to announce his decision. Unknown to him, the students gathered had already achieved consensus that (1) they would receive the president politely as “Christian gentleman,” and (2) if the suspensions were not lifted, they would quietly exit the hall and join the black students by leaving school.

Fathers Swords was received with a standing ovation. When silence returned, he announced amnesty for all 16 students, and the crowd again rose in applause and cheers. When calm resumed, he further announced (1) the suspension of all campus recruiting, (2) the suspension of classes and exams before Christmas, and (3) the opening of a “free university” to discuss the lessons of the crisis and consider the future shape and course of the entire campus community.

As cheering broke out again, a BSU spokesman took the microphone to announce the black students would return to campus.

What might have been a disastrous setback for New England’s oldest Catholic college became instead a turning point in my senior year and the school’s history. The black students’ courage, Fr. Brooks’ relentless efforts at reconciliation, Fr. Swords’ ability to cut through chaotic circumstances to discern the signs of those difficult times, the student body’s awakening to an education that transcended the classroom--all these efforts were needed to make peace possible.

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For the world outside reading the national headlines, this may have seemed merely a tempest in a teapot. For those who lived through it, this became a defining moment for our view of faith, justice, education, and the place of conflict in a complex and changing world. Big lessons indeed from such a “small” event!