Spring ’69: Heating Up, but Not Boiling Over

2019 ◽  
pp. 173-180
Author(s):  
Michael V. Metz
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Student Movement ◽  
Institutional Racism ◽  
Black Panthers ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
The University ◽  
Heating Up

Issues of race dominated the semester as black anger was on prominent display and white activists scrambled to provide support. Chicago Black Panthers visited the campus to speak, but a misunderstanding regarding a stipend caused white angst. The Vietnam War was not forgotten, as star footballer Mickey Hogan quit the sport and joined the activists, and the issue of violence became central to the student movement. The BSA made accusations of institutional racism against the university and white activists debated how to back them. With no appetite for sit-ins at this point, a march on the president’s house made do.

Cultural Identity and Allegiance among Vietnamese Students and Their Organizations at the University of California, Irvine: 1980–1990

2015 ◽  
Vol 117 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Thai-Huy Nguyen ◽  
Marybeth Gasman
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Student Activism ◽  
Asian Population ◽  
Well Being ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Vietnamese Refugees ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
The University

Background Within the canon of Asian American histories and histories of student activism, little attention is given to the Vietnamese students at the University of California at Irvine, who came together to advocate for the well-being of Vietnamese refugees after the end of the Vietnam War. This study examines this history and discusses the implications for understanding the unique histories that shape the lives of our increasingly diverse student populations. Purpose The objective of this study is to unearth and examine the experiences of Vietnamese students at the University of California at Irvine after the Vietnam War, between 1980 and 1990, and how their student organizations functioned to help them make sense of their personal losses as well as mobilize their efforts to highlight the plight of Vietnamese refugees. Research Design Primary and secondary sources were used to support this historical analysis. Data Collection Archival material came from the University of California at Irvine's Southeast Asian Archive. Conclusions This study pushes back against popular historical narratives that either ignore or blur the distinct experiences, traditions, and political and economic statuses among the U.S. Asian population. We demonstrate how Vietnamese students were active in their pursuit to improve the social and political conditions for their community. Moreover, this history brings forward very critical issues of student organizing and civic engagement and immigration.

They and We Have Not Paid Dues

Worldview ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 13-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Patrick Dobel
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Vietnam Veterans ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
International Peace ◽  
International Understanding ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
The University

AbstractOn May 22 the University of Chicago named Robert S. McNamara winner of the first Albert Pick, Jr., Award for International Understanding. Under the terms of the award the sum of $25,000 and a sculpture will be presented to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to international peace and understanding. The citation recognizes McNamara's contribution as president of the World Bank for the last decade and pointedly ignores his seven-year service as secretary of defense during the escalation of the Vietnam war. Implicit in the university's choice and its defense of that choice is the assumption that McNamara has paid his dues and made up for Vietnam.The award matters because it is part of a groping for a national recollection of Vietnam. We congratulate ourselves on our ability to make movies like The Deer Hunter or novels like Dispatches. A reception by President Carter for veterans and Congress's belated passage of Vietnam Veterans’ Counseling legislation also contribute to our self-satisfied awakening.

Crisis and Recovery

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morton Keller ◽  
Phyllis Keller
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Special Degree ◽  
Open Debate ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
The Vietnam War ◽  
Time Of Troubles ◽  
Faculty Meeting ◽  
The University

Every institution goes through crises produced by a mix of outside stimuli, internal discontent, and administrative failings. In the case of higher education, that happened in the late 1960s: to Berkeley in 1967 and Columbia in 1968, to Paris in the May Days of 1968, to Harvard in the spring of 1969. Critics of those upheavals resorted to the language of world-class disasters: “The Time of Troubles,” “The Terror,” “World War III.” Apologists favored comparably distended metaphors of revolution and rebirth, of a Words worthian sense of sheer bliss to be young and alive and involved in a time of institutional re-creation. The university protests of the late sixties had large-scale demographic, cultural, and political sources: the coming of age of the baby boomers, the rise of the counterculture, the trauma of Vietnam. But the greatest institutional disruption in Harvard’s history occurred as well in a more particular context: that of the increasingly meritocratic, affluent, self-satisfied university of the sixties. Of course other schools shared these qualities and experienced similar (or worse) student uprisings. But there appears to have been a special degree of shock on the part of Harvard faculty, administrators, and alumni that so much student disaffection existed in their university: that it could have happened here. The Vietnam War was the flash point that set off the protests of the late sixties. As American involvement in Vietnam grew, so did on-campus opposition. Initially it proceeded within the prescribed Harvard tradition of civility and open debate. Divinity School dean Samuel Miller wanted “to be sure that all viewpoints are represented” at a faculty meeting on Vietnam in the spring of 1965, and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy participated in the (relatively) polite discussion. Antidraft demonstrations were limited to a handful of students; even the Crimson had what a Pusey aide called a “mature” editorial on the topic. In November 1966, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara came to discuss the Vietnam War at the invitation of the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. He emerged from a talk with students in Quincy House to face a crowd, organized by Students for a Democratic Society, which tried to engage him in a “debate.” Ultimately he was obliged to escape through Harvard’s steam tunnels.

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