24 I Washington History 2012 The Desegregation of George Washington University i 25 The Desegregation of George Washington University and the District of Columbia in Transition, 1946–1954 by Andrew Novak or much of the mid-twentieth century, ger history at George Washington than at the the George Washington University in other District universities because, with only Washington, D.C., was under the lead- the loosest oversight by the board of trustees, Fership of a strong-willed and fiscally austere Marvin’s office was insulated from many social president, Dr. Cloyd Heck Marvin. The insti- forces. tution’s longest-serving president, Marvin rap- During the years between the world wars, idly expanded the school even during the Great George Washington University officially sanc- Depression and World War II. In a third of a tioned its longstanding practice of segregation. century, Marvin doubled the size of the stu- It is unclear when the exclusionary policy was dent body, tripled the size of the faculty, and implemented. In the second half of the nine- increased the endowment ninefold. During his teenth century, some Howard University stu- tenure between 1927 and 1959, the campus dents were permitted to take selected courses, grew rapidly from a single city block to nearly but the races of these students do not seem to ten blocks at the time of his retirement.1 Yet, have been recorded.2 Marvin affirmed segre- his conservative educational philosophy and gation. “There are no colored students in The The staff ofThe Hatchet, George Washington University’s student-run newspaper, reviewing their work in personal dominance of the administration at- George Washington University,” he wrote in 1954. The newspaper served as the chief organ for an increasingly politicized student body. Despite editorial tracted strong criticism throughout his tenure. an unaddressed internal policy statement in pressure from the university’s president, Hatchet editorials advocated desegregation. (Courtesy, GWU Archives.) George Washington’s status as the last segre- 1938, noting that Howard and other facilities gated university in the District of Columbia sufficiently provided for the African American would prove especially controversial in light of community in the District. “Students of any Marvin’s strong personal control over univer- race or color perform their best educational sity life. Racial segregation had a much lon- disciplines when they are happily situated in a congenial and homogenous group, and the University, in its tradition and social environ- Andrew Novak is an attorney-advisor with the ment, has long preserved this policy.”3 Marvin U.S. Board of Veterans’ Appeals and a 2005 concluded that George Washington would not graduate of George Washington University. enroll African American students. 25 26 I Washington History 2012 The Desegregation of George Washington University i 27 Depression and the New Deal.” By the end of ceeded the scholar William Mather Lewis as the decade, students had taken a keener inter- George Washington University president in est in federal politics than they had just a few 1927. With his election came a lasting change years earlier, and they began embracing ide- not only of leadership but of philosophy. ologies and adopting causes.4 While the elite Lewis staunchly defended lib- When the desegregation controversy swept eral education and the humanities, Marvin pi- through the District after World War II, oneered education as a business. With a de- George Washington’s campus was not im- gree in business administration and economics mune. Although segregation had no legal from Stanford and a master’s degree in busi- standing in public places in the District of Co- ness from the University of Southern Califor- lumbia after the Civil Rights Acts of 1872 and nia, Marvin received his Ph.D. from Harvard, 1873, the laws were omitted when the District where he wrote a dissertation on education as Code was rewritten in the 1890s.5 Restaurant a means of improving human efficiency, par- and department store protests succeeded to ticularly with the expansion of business and some degree. The Howard University chapter commercial curricula.8 Throughout his ten- of the National Association for the Advance- ures as president of the University of Arizona ment of Colored People staged sit-ins at res- and George Washington, Marvin consolidated taurants on U Street and in Penn Quarter in authority in the Office of the President at the 1943 and 1944.6 The Coordinating Commit- expense of faculty committees, constitutions, tee for the Enforcement of the D.C. Anti- and deanships. He advocated business- and Discrimination Laws (CCEAD), led by Mary science-oriented curricula over traditional lib- Church Terrell, successfully integrated Kresge eral arts and humanities.9 and Hecht’s department stores after weeks of Although Marvin succeeded as dean of the protest in 1951; Murphy’s Dime Stores fol- Southern Branch of the University of Califor- lowed in 1952. After local courts upheld the nia, his vision encountered resistance when he 1872 and 1873 Civil Rights Acts as valid in became president of the University of Arizona the District, the Supreme Court affirmed these in Tucson in 1922, and the youngest college After World War II, George Washington University became a major center for federal government contracts holdings in 1953.7 The District was a lively site president in the country. His sweeping reorga- and research. In this photo, Captain Calvin Lee Frederick, Assistant Professor of Air Science, teaches basic of racial and political change in this period, nization of departmental units, especially the techniques. (Courtesy, GWU Archives.) and these social forces reached campus sooner colleges of mining and agriculture, and pre- rather than later. mature termination of faculty appointments In the late 1940s, the university transitioned administration and the New Deal. Given the By the late 1940s, especially with the in- led to an investigation by the American As- from a commuter school catering to the aspi- university’s proximity to the center of nation- flux of veterans to campus under the GI Bill sociation of University Professors (AAUP) and rant professional class, many of whom attended al government, many of the most contentious and the increasingly prominent contractual re- widespread opposition by faculty members.10 night school while working in the expanding debates deeply affected the campus, whether lationships between the university and federal Marvin became a victim of the partisan rivalry federal government, to a residential university it was fear of Communism, anti-war protest, government agencies, this exclusionary policy between Democratic governor George Hunt populated by full-time students with a strong or racial division. By the 1950s, Washington was increasingly difficult to maintain. The de- and his primary challenger E. E. Ellinwood, campus identity. In many ways, the changes was still “a very confused city,” torn between segregation of George Washington University, the chairman of the university’s board of re- that occurred on campus reflected changes in a Southern provincialism and a more cosmo- the last segregated university in the Washing- gents, and his continued administration be- the District of Columbia after the New Deal. politan mindset fitting of a national capital. ton area, was the product of both internal and came a highly contentious topic of debate. The city’s population had mushroomed from The larger George Washington became, espe- external pressure and a campaign of regional Although impeachment charges filed against just over 600,000 in 1930 to more than one cially as a residential school, the more campus and national importance that united students, Marvin were dismissed, his supporters lost a million in 1941. The number of government life confronted social forces in Foggy Bottom faculty, and community leaders. majority of the board of regents and he, the employees more than doubled during World and the wider city. University historian Elmer Democrat Ellinwood, and the Republican War II alone and increased many times over Louis Kayser wrote of a “new breed of college loyd Heck Marvin, a young, brash ad- appointees on the board resigned in a highly since the beginning of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s student in the 1930s, “a product of the Great Cministrator raised in rural Ohio, suc- public spectacle.11 28 I Washington History 2012 The Desegregation of George Washington University i 29 Upon becoming president of George Wash- ful at George Washington “simply because, in the editorial board condemned the use of Rule ington, Marvin faced a very different recep- such a different situation, with no responsibil- 6 against liberal student groups and the pro- tion, with an eager non-political board of ity to the public, he could manipulate success- hibition of student participation in the peace trustees at a private university that had only fully—even his trustees.” She concluded that protests. In a meeting behind closed doors, recently avoided financial disaster. He proved although he “left the institution a better Uni- Marvin dumped the entire board of editors he could be a prolific fundraiser after securing versity than he found it in 1927 . those who and chose six members of the senior staff as re- a $1 million grant from the Scottish Rite of suffered under his leadership until their own placements.21 With a politically conscious stu- Freemasonry to establish the School of Gov- retirement, even while recognizing his accom- dent body and an administration less tolerant ernment. The board also appreciated his ef- plishments, never respected him nor trusted of dissent, a clash was certain. forts to streamline the administration and cen- him.”16 Her criticism of Marvin’s personal mi- That clash, Dr. Herrick’s predicted “rebel- tralize hiring and tenure decisions in the Of- cromanagement and unwillingness to delegate lion,” erupted in the spring of 1940 when a fice of the President.