The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley Hugo du Coudray April 1997 Introduction In the Fall Semester of 1964, there was a spontaneous revolt by students on the University of California Campus at Berkeley. The issue was whether College students were citizens entitled to politiCal action and free speeCh under the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, or Children in the Care an Administration in loco parentis. When the revolt took plaCe, it was Common for College students to be supervised and restricted in their activities in a kind of extended Childhood. Women living in College dormitories had to obey Curfews and answer to the Dean of Women on their sexual behavior. In many Colleges, women Could not live off Campus at all. Men were allowed more freedom, but were Controlled in their political and social expression and aCtions. Student government was meaningless play in a Controlled arena—"sandbox politics." Unruly students were suspended or expelled. It is barely possible for College students to imagine living in these Conditions today; events in the 1960s utterly changed the relations between universities and their students. Our subjeCt is the single most important inCident in the history of that Change. The Free SpeeCh Movement at Berkeley Confronted the established doCtrine of in loco parentis in the cause of social justice and civil liberty. It was brave, idealistic and hopeless—but it won anyway. The setting: the place and the times The original Campus of the University of California is in Berkeley, Alameda County, on the San FranCisCo Bay. Alameda County inCludes the bay Cities of Albany, Berkeley, Oakland, and Hayward and then extends south and east to inClude many smaller Communities, like Fremont, Pleasanton, and Livermore. Livermore is famous as the site of the Lawrence-Livermore Radiation Laboratories, operated by the University for the AtomiC Energy Commission. Oakland is the largest City in Alameda, and is the County seat. In 1964, the state government of California had a long history of politiCal Conservatism and Alameda County was no exCeption. For deCades, it had been represented by Republican legislators, both at the state and federal levels. One of the most powerful politiCal figures in the state, former U. S. Senator William Knowland (Called "The Senator from Formosa" for his opposition to Communist China), owned and edited the Oakland Tribune. The Tribune is the dominant newspaper in the East Bay and rivals the San FranCisCo papers in CirCulation. Also in Oakland, was the offiCe of DistriCt Attorney J. Frank Coakley, a Conservative RepubliCan and a famous advoCate of law-and-order. For most of its history, the City of Berkeley had been almost as Conservative as Oakland and the rest of the County. There were some notable exCeptions. In 1911 a 1 soCialist mayor (J. Stitt Wilson) held offiCe for one term and tried to form City-owned utilities. He was blocked by business interests. The Berkeley Co-op, a relic of the 1930's depression years, had an aCtive group of members supporting its experiments in Co-operative marketing. It pioneered both the idea of Consumer- owned retail outlets and the "basic/boutique grocery," with a line of low-cost, high- quality house brands of staple goods and a large variety of unusual and exotic foods. Its example revolutionized the retail trade: a modern Safeway store now follows their model. Berkeley was also the home of the first (1949) suCCessful listener- supported FM radio station in AmeriCa, KPFA. In time, it opened stations in Los Angeles (KPFK) and in New York (WBAI) and beCame the PaCifiCa Radio network. But these institutions were exCeptions, mostly supported by the University Community and by the minority liberals in town. Most Berkeley citizens were conservatives, especially those living in the exclusive hills. In the late 1950's, there was a shift of power toward liberalism in the City's government. In 1948, the minority group of white liberals had formed an allianCe with the rapidly growing blaCk population to send Byron Rumford to the state legislature. Rumford was the first blaCk to be eleCted to the state body from a distriCt with a white majority. It was a remarkable aChievement for the time. This coalition of black and white liberals grew stronger as AmeriCan politiCs emerged from the MCCarthyism of the mid 1950's and a strong Center-liberal constituency developed in the nation, Culminating in the eleCtion of President Kennedy in 1960. The developing struggle for Civil rights in AmeriCa by blaCk-white alliances strengthened the Berkeley coalition, and it eventually took control of the City CounCil. In 1961 it eleCted the first blaCk CounCilman in Berkeley's history, Wilmont Sweeney. But the financial power in the city—the downtown merChants, and the Berkeley Daily Gazette—remained solidly Conservative and RepubliCan. Then, in the early 1960s, liberals and conservatives joined battle over civil rights. The real estate agencies in the East Bay had long practiced racist policies. When the University required landlords advertising for student housing to sign non- disCrimination pledges in 1960, about one-third refused. In 1961, with SNCC and the Freedom Riders aCtive in the Southern states, a group of liberal law students studied the systematiC exClusion of blaCk families from all-white neighborhoods in the East Bay; in the same year, the Congress of RaCial Equality (CORE) revealed the same ugly praCtiCes in Berkeley by sending blaCk, white, and mixed Couples out to buy houses. Both groups doCumented the raCist praCtiCes they unCovered and urged the Berkeley City CounCil to take aCtion. After two years of study, the liberal Coalition in the CounCil passed an ordinanCe in 1963 banning disCrimination in real estate and in rentals. There was an immediate reaCtion from the Realtors and the landlords. The arCh-conservative, large-scale landlord, Otis Marston, founded Berkeley Citizens United (BCU) to fight the liberal policies of the City Council, and money poured in from all the real-estate interests in California to fund a local referendum to repeal the measure. The Realtors and land developers in California were one of the riChest and most powerful politiCal lobbies in the nation. The eleCtion was held in April of 1963 and the anti-disCrimination ordinanCe was 2 repealed 22,250 to 20,456. It was a major viCtory for the BCU and for the realty interests in the state. These events made news all over California. Two months later, in June 1963, state Senator Rumford, backed by Governor Edmond G. "Pat" Brown, pushed a bill through the state legislature banning disCrimination in housing in California. It was called the Rumford Act. The state real-estate lobby was furious, and still flushed with the viCtory in Berkeley. The realtors immediately began a referendum Campaign that put Proposition 14 on the ballot for the eleCtions in November 1964. Proposition 14 proposed to repeal the Rumford Act and forbid any state legislation outlawing disCrimination in housing. It soon beCame the hottest issue of the 1964 eleCtions, the Center of national attention. Would Californians support the Rumford Act, or vote for disCrimination? The land interests in California poured huge sums into a Campaign in favor of Prop 14, and they were joined by other conservatives from all over AmeriCa who saw this as a bellwether issue. When the Fall semester of 1964 began at the University of California in September, the raCe on Proposition 14 was in the stretch. The eleCtions were less than two months away. The University: The institution Until the SeCond World War, the most prestigious universities in AmeriCa were those founded on large private endowments. Harvard and Yale, PrinCeton and Columbia, ChiCago and Stanford had an eminenCe that none of the state schools Could approaCh. There was no way for publiC monies to support the levels of faCulty and resources held by the private schools. But, when the Second World War phased into a continuing Cold War in the late 1940's and 1950's, the state universities found a way: large government ContraCts. The two most suCCessful state sChools at this game—the ones who set the example and standard for the others—were MiChigan State University and the University of California. California did best of all. High- energy physics began at Berkeley with the cyclotron built by Earnest Lawrence, and the famous Rad Lab (Radiation Laboratory). Soon the University opened the LawrenCe Radiation Laboratories in Livermore whiCh brought in huge sums from the AtomiC Energy Commission. The atomiC weapons race was on and the Rad Lab was a major player. The University of California at Berkeley was soon one of the world's great sChools. In 1959 there were more Nobel laureates at Berkeley than on any other Campus in the world. The Regents and the President The University of California is governed by a Board of Regents, appointed by the Governor for 16-year terms. There are sixteen Regents and eight ex-officio members, inCluding the Governor and the President of the University. The sixteen Regents in 1964 were "the wealthiest and most powerful men and women in California." (Rorabaugh, 1989, p. 11) Their members represented twenty-three major Corporations, inCluding four banks, two airCraft Companies, two mining Companies, two oil Companies, four land-development Companies, and the three 3 biggest newspaper/publishing empires in the state [Hearst, Chandler and MCCalls](Lipset & Wolin, 1965, pp. 76-7). The Regents were very sensitive to CritiCism from the politiCal right; they had recently publicly apologized to the AmeriCan Legion for a question on the entranCe examination for the University whiCh "cast the FBI in a bad light." In 1961, pressured by State Senator Hugh Burns, chair of the California Senate's Un-AmeriCan ACtivities Committee, they refused to allow MalColm X to speak on the Berkeley Campus on the grounds that he promoted religion.