“The Operation of the Machine”

The Clark Kerr era in the history of the University of California (1952–1967) was marked by momentous social and cultural upheaval, much of which was fought out across the UC system's then eight campuses, particularly Berkeley and UCLA. No issue sparked greater student action than civil rights, which was a challenge that Kerr confronted first as Berkeley chancellor and then as president of the entire UC system. This challenge was met in every area of the university's affairs, including its athletics programs. Kerr demanded that the university's teams schedule games with the nation's most prestigious colleges and universities, whose academic profiles matched its own. These included segregated southern institutions, whose varsity teams were still composed entirely of white athletes and, in some cases, demanded the segregation of competitors by race. These games presented unique challenges for a university that Kerr considered “a portal open to all able young people,” since such competitive and commercial affiliations with segregated institutions called into question the university's sincerity in committing itself to equal educational opportunity. By digging deeply in the university archives at both Berkeley and UCLA, this article reveals how Kerr and his administration promoted the university's affiliation with these southern institutions without taking the racial politics of these games into serious consideration. In turn, the article reassesses the university's racial record in the Kerr era and its commitment to protecting the civil rights of the black student athletes who competed on its varsity teams.

Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Course of History Since Middle Antiquity

Two periods in Chinese history can be characterized as constituting a North/South polarization: the period commonly known as the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420ad-589ad), and the Southern Song, Jin, and Yuan Dynasties (1115ad-1368ad). Both of these periods exhibited sharp contrasts between the North and South that can be seen in their respective political and economic institutions. The North/South parity in both of these periods had a great impact on the course of Chinese history. Both before and after the much studied Tang-Song transformation, Chinese history evolved as a conjoining of previously separate North/South institutions. Once the country achieved unification under the Sui Dynasty and early part of the Tang, the trend was to carry on the Northern institutions in the form of political and economic administration. Later in the Tang Dynasty the Northern institutions and practices gave way to the increasing implementation of the Southern institutions across the country. During the Song Dynasty, the Song court initially inherited this “Southernization” trend while the minority kingdoms of Liao, Xia, Jin, and Yuan primarily inherited the Northern practices. After coexisting for a time, the Yuan Dynasty and early Ming saw the eventual dominance of the Southern institutions, while in middle to late Ming the Northern practices reasserted themselves and became the norm. An analysis of these two periods of North/South disparity will demonstrate how these differences came about and how this constant divergence-convergence influenced Chinese history.

The Public Face of Southern Institutions for the "Feeble-Minded"

The article examines the history of Southern institutions and how these facilities are presently facing up to that past. Established both to care for and to control a population of individuals labeled as feeble-minded and deviant, these facilities provided little support and help for patients and quickly devolved into over-crowded, under-funded operations. With the de-institutionalization revolution of the late twentieth century, they ceased to be the center of their state's program to handle this population. Currently through websites, museums, archives, and historic building designations, they are beginning to examine their past treatment in a more public fashion.