The University: Civil Rights and Civic Responsibilities

The University: Civil Rights and Civic Responsibilities

Address by Clark Kerr, President, University of California at Charter Day ceremonies, Davis Campus

May 5, 1964

The United States of America is engaged today in what future historians will undoubtedly call a period of profound social change; in a struggle to bring to complete reality the great American ideal of freedom and equality for all American citizens, in a renewed attack against the forces of fear and ignorance that have kept the promise unfulfilled for some American citizens for more than one hundred years. The realization of this ideal will be one of the great victories for the human spirit, and it now seems certain that destiny has given to our generation the grave opportunity to witness and to contribute to this historic victory.

The University of California, as an integral part of the society it serves, is devoted to the fulfillment of this American dream. The University is also devoted to much else that is central to the proper conduct of a nation conceived in the spirit of justice and freedom and dedicated to the propriety of means as well as to the desirability of ends. I should like to speak briefly today of the University's contributions both to the achievement of this dream of equality and to the support of methods worthy of the dream itself.

The University of California has stood for nearly a century as a great portal to equality of opportunity in this State—a portal open to all able young people. Many thousands of students to whom other doors were closed have walked through that portal to make their contributions to the nation—including the first American Negro to win the Nobel Prize and the first great Negro athlete to break the color bar in professional sports.

Throughout its history, the University has supported policies and programs which contribute to equality of opportunity.

We admit students from all segments of society and all parts of the world, our sole concern being for their past achievements and future promise.

We select faculty and employees on the basis of demonstrated capacity to perform, and we work with the State Fair Employment Practices Commission to assure that these policies are not subverted in practice at any level. Our staff presently includes a somewhat higher proportion of minority group members than the proportion of these minorities in the total population.

We have sponsored many research projects and conferences on the effects of segregation and the problems of integration.

We have undertaken a program to identify academically promising high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds and to help them qualify for a university education.

The University of California has conducted its own affairs in the conviction that "all men are created equal" and has sought by example and by idea to share that conviction with the society we serve.

It is a fact of history, however regrettable, that social change is often accompanied by tensions and frictions which occasionally erupt into civil disturbances. Some of the controversies of this current period of social change have given rise to questions about the University's position, both institutionally and in relation to the actions of a few citizens who happen also to be University students, faculty members, or employees. This is perhaps an opportune time for me to state again the position of the University.

First and foremost, the University is fully and inalterably committed to the principles of democratic government upon which this nation was founded, among which is the rule of law. Only under a rule of law can all citizens be assured full rights and liberties, or redress when those rights or liberties are denied. Respect for the law of the land is imperative to the survival of democratic government. Those who deliberately violate a specific law, to test it or to call public attention to what they believe to be an injustice, must be prepared to accept the lawful consequences of their actions, which consequences may follow them for much of their lives; and they bear the very heavy moral responsibility of determining that there is no other effective recourse within the body of law and that the cause of justice which they seek to serve outweighs the exceedingly grave consequences of an act which weakens the total fabric of the law. Those individuals who enter into such an act may be paying merely lip service to democratic ideals while in actuality serving the cause of anarchy or some other cause.

The University of California assumes responsibility for the preservation of law and order upon its campuses. The University deplores disrespect for the law on the part of any citizens, whatever their organizational ties.

It has recently been suggested that the University should also assume responsibility for the off-campus actions of individual students by expelling those who are arrested or convicted for illegal kinds of participation in civil rights demonstrations. I should like to state briefly why I believe this proposal to be both impractical and improper.

The University now has a total enrollment of more than 60,000 students on seven different campuses; soon the figure will exceed 100,000 on nine campuses. The University must and will maintain academic and campus discipline among this huge number of students. But we cannot possibly maintain surveillance over the off-campus actions of more than 60,000 students, even if we wanted to do so, in their home towns, in their home states, their home countries, or whatever parts of the state or the world they may visit in their roles as individual citizens.

But there are more important considerations. A rule that arbitrarily provides for expulsion after a given number of arrests or convictions could work grave inequities. Let me indicate a few of the questions which would immediately arise. What about arrests culminating in acquittals? What about cases in which some participants in mass demonstrations are acquitted and others convicted by different juries? What about convictions in which the judge suspends the sentence because of mitigating circumstances? What about convictions in Southern states where local laws are much more restrictive? What about convictions which are appealed to higher courts? And, of course, what about arrests for a broad spectrum of other types of offenses, ranging from felonies to traffic violations to over-indulgence in Big Game fervor?

The American judicial system provides that a person shall not be tried twice, and sentenced twice, for the same offense. A single court conducts the case and imposes a single sentence. The court does not rule that a violator shall be barred from further use of tax-supported institutions—schools, postal service, highway system, public parks—nor are these public entities expected to take official note of and impose additional penalties upon violators. I see no reason today to depart from these traditional American principles of law and jurisprudence by having the University impose a second trial or a second penalty. It would be manifestly unfair to treat the citizen who is also a student differently from the citizen who is not also a student.

There are still other principles at stake. The American society is a pluralistic society, with many centers of power, many sets of rules and relationships, and many spheres of action and concern. The emergence of a pluralistic rather than a monolithic form of society in the United States was no happenstance; rather, it was the inevitable concomitant of our belief in democratic government and the importance of the individual. Many different centers of power will prevent any one center, particularly the state, from becoming all-powerful. Many different organizations, each with limited relationships to its members, will prevent any one organization from dominating the life of the individual.

Just as there are many separate organizations in a democratic society, so also the individual has many separate relationships to these organizations. He may be at one and the same time the member of a family, a student in a university, a participant in a church, an employee of a business, and a citizen of the state; and in each of these relationships he will have certain rights and responsibilities. The relationship to the family is inherently different from that to the university or to the state. The relationship to the university is as a student, subject to the rules of the university and proper performance within the university; to the state as a citizen subject to the laws of the state. The university can no more act as though it were the state, than the state can act as though it were the university. We have a system based upon separation of powers, not only within the public, but also within the private spheres of action, and between public and private spheres. The university relates to its students as students. It is not also the family, or the church, or the state. This is the most basic consideration of all.

I say again as I have said before that the activities of students acting as private citizens off-campus on non-University matters are outside the sphere of the University. (1) The student is an individual and his individuality should be respected by the University. The University should seek to govern him and discipline him only in areas of direct University concern. (2) The student is also an independent citizen. As student, the University assumes certain responsibilities for his proper conduct. As citizen, the state assumes certain responsibilities. (3) The punishment, for students and citizens, should fit the crime. One punishment, not two, should fit one crime. A citizen because he is a student should not be penalized more than his fellow citizen who is not a student. There should be equal treatment under the law.

There is another side to this coin. Just as the University cannot and should not follow the student into his family life or his church life or his activities as a citizen off the campus, so also the students, individually or collectively, should not and cannot take the name of the University with them as they move into religious or political or other non-University activities; nor should they or can they use University facilities in connection with such affairs. The University has resisted and will continue to resist such efforts by students, just as it has resisted and will continue to resist the suggestions of others that the University take on some of the functions of the state. The University is an independent educational institution. It is not a partisan political or sectarian religious institution; nor is it an enforcement arm of the state. It will not accede to pressures for either form of exploitation of its name, its facilities, its authority. The University will not allow students or others connected with it to use it to further their non-University political or social or religious causes nor will it allow those outside the University to use it for non-University purposes. The University will remain what it always has been—a University devoted to instruction, research and public service wherever knowledge can serve society.

In conclusion, may I say that the University of California does share, in its instructional functions, along with other educational institutions, with churches, with families, a deep responsibility to help equip our students with the training, the knowledge, and the understanding to care wisely and effectively about the future of our free society. In meeting this responsibility, the University supports the powers of persuasion as against the use of force, the application of decent means to decent ends, the constructive act as against the destructive blow, respect for the rights of others, opposition to passion and hate, the reasoned argument as against the simplistic slogan, enlightenment in place of blind prejudice and ignorance. Only thus, by supporting means worthy of the ideals of our American society, can the University of California best help to bring to reality in the urgent present the ageless vision "that all men are created equal;" can it also best serve a society based on "the consent of the governed."