| Sweeney: We’re continuing today the interview with Professor
Robert L. Stern of the Political Science Department of Old Dominion University.
Now, first of all, Prof. Stern, you served on the AAUP committee, which
proposed the Faculty Senate in 1965. I have several questions about the
Faculty Senate, what brought it about, what was the nature of it, whether
the Administration was sympathetic to it, what kind of functions it had,
and whether it acted in an advisory capacity and whether it had any policy-making
powers.
Stern: Well, it’d probably be easiest to start out with the fact
that the committee did work with the Administration, got support from
the Administration – the Administration was very happy to see
this as an advisory body which was intended to promote ideas, send them
on to the President for his consideration. Perhaps we started out on
too low a key if anything, but it was our idea that it would work out
if we simply sent requests to the President – we seemed to feel
at the time that he would act reasonably promptly on any of the suggestions
that we had, and the constitution was written entirely as an advisory
body. We did not write it at all the way, for example, that Norfolk
State wrote theirs that provision- -that would include the fact that
if the President failed to operate within a certain period of time that
the recommendation would then be sent on to the Board of Visitors. The
idea of bypassing the President or even if- -not really bypassing him
but giving him an opportunity and if he didn’t take it to automatically
send it to the Board of Visitors or upon another vote to do so, was
not one of the things that we considered at that stage, at least, in
the consideration. So there’s no doubt about the fact that it
was intended fully from the standp- -from the start to be a body which
would make recommendations to the President for his consideration. There
were several discussions of the questions of the future of the Senate
and the possibility of strengthening the Senate and possibly even finding
ways of submitting it beyond the President, but these never did materialize
in the life of the Faculty Senate under the- -in the period of the time
that it was Old Dominion College. So that … it did not seek policy-making
powers, and I think that probably was one of the reasons why the proposals
were very much of the type that the President enjoyed and got cooperation
on that score. The problem came when the President just did not answer
some of the questions and simply left them. At that point one of the
devices used was to simply go to the press, which was done, I remember
during Al Teich’s presidency, that on one occasion the president
very definitely had the press there and when the President had not acted
went immediately to the press. And had arranged to do so, if the President
did act or if he didn’t act. In either case to be able to take
it directly to the press. That was the real appeal that was available
even though rarely used in the period that the Faculty Senate was in
operation prior to President Bugg’s coming to the institution
at the time it became a university.
Sweeney: Over the years what do you believe has been the AAUP chapter’s
greatest contribution to the college?
Stern: I think the fact that- -it’s so quick and automatic to
say “tenure,” but I think it’s broader than simply
the word tenure. I would say that the fact that it is a national organization,
the fact that it does have the power to blacklist institutions that
do not conform to its basic rules, the fact that it has been the basic
protector of academic freedom through tenure considerations has worked
to a very sizable advantage to this institution. And I think we have
discussed the fact that the key problem, the one that really drew the
most attention to Old Dominion was the time when the contract was not
given to Professor Peterson and the AUP took action within 24 hours.
In fact the same day that the AUP took action President Webb delivered
it personally to Dr. Peterson to make sure that he had his contract
for the following year. This was a situation where AUP I think was tremendously
effective. I think that over the years the ability to bring controversial
people to the campus has been through the efforts of the AUP, which
would probably not have been possible without the AUP. I think that
the AUP has helped provide not just a sounding board but a group that
has been willing to work for consideration in raising the salaries of
members of the faculty here. And you need some people that go beyond
your own campus if the salaries across the state are below the national
average as they are in Virginia. So that I would say that in several
areas the AUP has been quite effective, but in none has the AUP been
so important to the faculty itself and probably to the institution as
it’s been in the field of academic freedom and tenure.
Sweeney: Did you counsel students on the Peace Corps after the program
was established, and did you find a good response to the Peace Corps among
the students here in the 1960’s?
Stern: I presume that the question is asked simply because of the fact
that you knew I did this, and it was interesting. We did get some very
fine people down from Washington to work with our people. We did have
a bit of enthusiasm, particularly in the period when the Peace Corps
was first founded. There was a tremendous interest in the Peace Corps.
The problem really of a dormitory- -of a non-dormitory college such
as this has been traditionally – and we’re now becoming
a little bit more of a dormitory college but being traditionally non-dormitory
– is that so many of the students look upon this pretty much as
a post-high school education, come to the campus for courses, go home
again and don’t have too much part in college life. Generally
speaking, people that go to an urban institution of higher learning
are people who like to live in a highly structured operation. And the
demands of the Peace Corps are for people who are willing to shed the
structured situation and go in for a very different type of situation.
So that we’ve- -we had students, we did send some to the Peace
Corps. I think by and large it was a worthwhile effort on our part,
and I think that even apart from the question of anybody’s going
is the fact that the students at least became aware of the fact that
college students were part of the outside world in a way that most students
are not even aware of at an institution like Old Dominion. So that I
thought it was worthwhile. We would get, oh anywhere from 20 to 30 students
turn out when Peace Corps members came down from Washington and Will
Frank took it over – I don’t know whether he still operates
it, I think he does – and he I would think would agree that basically
it’s an educational process as far as the campus is concerned
and for that reason alone is a very worthwhile program.
Sweeney: In the spring of 1970 you were involved in the Save ODU campaign.
Three questions in regard to that: first, could you tell me how it came
about, and what- -secondly, what role did you play in the campaign, and
thirdly, what effect did the campaign have in gaining additional support
for the school from the Legislature?
Stern: As you can well imagine, the Save ODU campaign was one that
did get the campus more involved than anything else that’s happened
in my knowledge of the- -during the thirty years I’ve been here.
We achieved a degree of unity that had been unknown on the campus before,
and it was about the only way in which you can take a campus of the
size of Old Dominion University - which at that time had several thousand
students, now has eleven thousand but I guess we had about seven at
that time, I’m not sure what the exact figure would have been.
We were in the process of becoming a university. We had a new president
who was enthusiastic about the idea of community involvement. I mentioned
it in class. Some of my students took it up and started operating in
the dormitories to get support. I mention the fact that the dormitories
were the logical place because the fact that you don’t get very
far simply by working on your legislators – they’re already
of your problems. What you have to do is get support from people in
other parts of the state, and this was the logical device. We had- -we
used the device of working in the dorms. I can’t remember the
fellow’s name off hand, he was a big Arab who had treme- -his
name was Arabic, I believe he may have been born in this country- -but
he was a person of tremendous enthusiasm, and he got- -he took the bit
in teeth and went over there and started working on it. And I suggested
that they write to their parents and get the parents to write to the
members of the legislature from their area. We have, I think, about
a thousand people here from Northern Virginia. This was very effective.
This is the only area outside of Tidewater where we have a very sizable
student body. But even letters that came from a few students through
their parents to legislators from other areas were effective because
of the fact that most people don’t realize that members of the
state legislature get very little from home. There’s very little
feed- -that’s fed in to the state legislature in Virginia, I don’t
know about other states but we have practically zero correspondence
going back and forth between the public and the legislators. Except
when some particular issue strikes which gets sizable support. This
proved to be very effective. The students asked me if I would act as
a coordinator for their student operations. I did so and met with a
group of the student leaders. In fact I was very pleased to see the
high caliber of student leadership that was produced. Very enthusiastic,
very anxious to get something going. You my have seen some of the T-shirts
that were produced at the time to save ODU. We got constant communication
with the members of the Legislature in the Tidewater area, who worked
very hard for us. We also formed later on a faculty group and got cooperation
there. We- -I remember one time when Chuck Burgess and John Tabb and
I- -I’m pretty sure John was with us- -went down and talked to
the man who’s head of the Old Dominion University Foundation and
got cooperation with the radio and television people to have a talk
on the needs of Old Dominion University and the tremendous need for
expansion. We got cooperation from, oh who’s the Vice-Chairman
of our Board of Visitors now- -
Sweeney: Albert Gornto?
Stern: Yeah, Albert Gornto worked with us in helping promote this.
It was just a unity that has not been present at any other time in my
memory in which the whole college participated. One of the most effective
things that we did was to have some students who were trained in the
problem and trained in the way of talking to the legislators go up to
Richmond, talk to the members of the Legislature, the Appropriations
Committee in the House and the Finance Committee in the Senate, answer
questions – they were all very well dressed. We took two carloads
of students up there, busloads of students, they- -we tried to get them
from many different parts of the state to talk to their legislators
which they did. Several of us met with the secretary of the Governor,
who was very cooperative and said that this was the first time to his
knowledge that any group had come up to the Richmond capital for the
purpose of trying to get funds for their institution. So that I think
in the way in which the group worked- -the students worked, the way
in which their parents cooperated with us, the way in which the faculty
worked as a unit in getting this consideration, the overall cooperation
was just really incredible. And I think that there was no doubt about
the fact that the 750 thousand dollars additional, above the budget,
that came to Old Dominion University that year was definitely due to
the campaign. We’d ne- -never would have gotten that money without
it.
Sweeney: The next question has to do with the American Civil Liberties
Union. Throughout the 1960’s the ACLU became involved in several
questions related to academic freedom on the campus, acting in defense
of the Gadfly in the Mace and Crown against censorship threats by the
administration. Also the question of security of person in the dormitories
arose in 1971 when the management of the dormitories made searches without
warrants. Could you assess the impact of the ACLU’s interest in
campus affairs in these instances and any other instances that you might
recall.
Stern: Yes, I’ll be perfectly honest. I really should- -this
is one question I should have done some research on before I came up
to talk to you, but … the position that we took, and this involved
not only the fact that some of our faculty and students were both on
the ACLU board including myself who at one time was chairman of the
local ACLU in Norfolk, the fact that we did create for a while a campus
American Civil Liberties Union chapter – one of the few student
chapters that we have anywhere in the United States. In fact we had
to work out our own chapter operations and plans because, generally
speaking the student chapters don’t exist and those students that
are members are members of the adult group. But I think we got a good
deal more support by having a student group here. All these factors
added in to the fact that we had a tremendous input and a tremendous
overview of what was going on, on the college campuses. We’ve
had representation from Norfolk State College on the American Civil
Liberties Union board ever since its existence as well as the representation
… well anyway Old Dominion and Norfolk State have been represented
right from the start and still are today. I think that Dr. Will Frank
can probably give you maybe some details that I may omit in this, but
our position is that colleges ought to be operating at a time when the
students have responsibility for their own decision making and carrying
it through. I do not subscribe to the principle of colleges acting in
loco parentis. I was shocked at the idea in 1974 that there should be
some combination with Mace and Crown joining with the University News.
I think they should serve quite a different purpose. I think the purpose
of the Mace and Crown ought to be educational; it ought to be a training
ground. I am reminded of the statement of General Buckner in World War
I when he was asked why it was that his Alaskan command had made so
few mistakes compared to so many other commands. He said, “Well,
I guess my answer is about the same as my father’s” –
I don’t know if it was father or grandfather, at the Civil War
probably grandfather but also a General Buckner who said that the reason
that he had made so few mistakes in the field was because of the damn
fool mistakes when he was young. And this is the way in which a college
paper ought to be operated. It ought to be a whole lot more vigorous,
it ought to be a whole lot more outspoken, and it ought to be pretty
free from censorship. Now, I know that administrations tend to be conservative
and tend to feel that this is a threat, that this is a danger to them.
We had cases not only in Norfolk, we had cases at Fredericksburg with
Mary Washington College because of an editorial that was written there.
We had a case in Williamsburg that became so sensational that the girl
was able to go up and work on the New York Times on the strength of
her working against censorship. This is my idea of what ought to be
a college press: that the college press ought to be able to take the
bit in its teeth. Now the Gadfly story was one in which as a result
of the way in which it was written – this also is tied in with
the contract for Professor Peterson that we mentioned a little while
back – that involved the story of the- -of Mary the mother of
Jesus and ends up with her producing a black child. And according to
what we heard, whether reliable or not, the two black ministers called
Governor Godwin in protest. Governor Godwin did what indicated at least
a threat to the funds for Old Dominion. The college got very excited
about the fact and this fear that they were going to lose some of the
needed funds to operate … so that censorship is just too easy
and wrong an answer to try and deal with a situation like that. Guidelines
are something different again. If the students and faculty can work
out some guidelines for dealing with situations, that’s fine.
I would say that this comes under the same heading as the famous film
of the miracle, in which the Supreme Court said that there should be
no censorship in America on the basis of something being anti-religious
or sacrilegious. And I think that is correct. Religion has lasted a
long time as a basic part of man’s heritage. I don’t think
it’s threatened because of the fact that young people take a different
view of religion than those of us who are older, and I don’t think
censorship should be used as a method of dealing with the situation.
In connection with the searches in 1971 I think that the Old Dominion,
I’m sorry, that the American Civil Liberties Union was quite effective
in dealing with this. That we worked with the students and some of them
came down and talked to us at a board- -at more than one board meeting.
We worked out with them proposals to take to the management of the dormitories,
and as far as I know the success was pretty great in stopping this type
of operation. I don’t know whether it’s going on today but
I- -as far as I know it is not. At least I haven’t heard of it,
so I think that this was very … one of the successes of the American
Civil Liberties Union was in working that out so that it was stopped.
Sweeney: Last question on the university-related matters: Have you supported
the creation of a law school at Old Dominion, and why do you think so
little progress has been made in bringing about a law school here?
Stern: Well, I do have friends on the- -in both the House and in the
Senate, and the answer is that the progress has been slow simply because
of the fact that there has been the feeling through the years that if
Old Dominion University had a law school that the one at Williamsburg
might fold up. That there just isn’t that much of a demand in
the state for law schools and if it came down to that choice that it
might be disadvantageous to the state to eliminate a law school that
has existed back from the time when George Wythe was its most famous
member and first, I believe, first Speaker of the House when America
got her independence. That is, in Richmond, I’m not talking about
national. So that with that two hundred years of- -over two hundred
years of history behind it of the law school the state has just given
five million dollars to the College of William and Mary for the purpose
of doubling their law school size. And I think the answer to the little
progress here is because of the fact that there are two private law
schools in the state and two public law schools in the state and the
legislature seemed satisfied that this is an adequate number and with
this grant of funds to the College of William and Mary there is every
indication that there will not be at any time in the foreseeable future
any possibility of a law school at the college- -at the Old Dominion
University. I think it’d be fine to have one. I think that for
example one argument for one here would be that we probably have some
admiralty law people in Norfolk who could do a very competent course
in this field. I think that a community like Norfolk could stress municipal
law in a law- -in the field of law. I think that there are areas of
law where Norfolk would logically be a site for a law school. But we
haven’t been able to get any enthusiastic support from our own
members of the state legislature. You may have noted that in yesterday’s
New York Times they mentioned that the legislature is concerned about
the declining enrollments anticipated to 1990 in New York schools and
therefore they’re not interested in capital investment in buildings
for their campuses. And Virginia as you know spends far less than New
York and is far more conservative so that I would be very much surprised
if we were to see a law school here at any time in the foreseeable future.
Sweeney: I’d like to ask a couple of questions here on community
related matters. First of all, I’d like you to discuss how you became
involved in the Norfolk Committee for the Public Schools in 1958. And
several questions in connection with that, such as the actions that you
took to try and get the schools reopened, the impact that these actions
had, whether you met with hostility, the question of how the campus reacted
to this crisis, the faculty and the students, why the city remained so
calm in 1958, and lastly whether you participated in the referendum campaign
for local control of the schools.
Stern: Well, this is pretty much a rerun. Yes, we’ve I’m
sure discussed these questions … OK. Well, anyway, since this
is supposed to be an ego trip for me I might as well enjoy this one,
going back to ’58. I do feel that this is one of the most important
commitments that I ever made was the commitment to help reopen the Norfolk
schools. What happened was that in the spring of 1958 with the legislation
that was on the books of the state, if any integration was made, that
is if any black students came into a white school or any white students
came into a black school under the laws of the state the schools would
be closed. This seemed to us a very dangerous and highly stupid proposal
to operate on but you must remember that the attitude on race in the
1950’s was very much different than it is in 1970’s. And
it’s hard to believe in terms of changes in attitude that this
is only fifteen years ago when this took place. In the spring of ’58
what happened was that seventeen black students were going into the
white high schools. A very highly selective group, a group who was very
carefully trained by Mrs. Vivian Carter Mason to accept the realization
that their loyalty would be to the schools that they were going to and
that they should consider themselves in that school just the same as
the white students did. The attitude of the mayor of Norfolk at first
was willingness to give consideration. Duckworth however reverted to
his usual temper, and one time when we did go down to talk to him to
try to get him to accept the fact that the integration of the schools
was a necessary consideration, I remember he attacked Dr. Edgar Potts
of Epworth Methodist Church in a way that to me was just almost unbelievable.
The whole … attitude of at least part of the Council was that
it should be fought every step of the way. No willingness to give any
consideration. Very different from Dr. Schweitzer- -from Mr. Schweitzer
and the city school board which was well aware of the importance of
maintaining the public school system and keeping the public schools
open. The problem was locally that the people in 1958 – I am confusing
I know spring and fall because our actual appearance before City Council
was in the fall not spring. But the actual problem in the spring of
1958 was the constant repetition of the phrase almost as if it came
out of catechism that they will not allow the schools to close. They,
of course, meaning the Byrd machine. There was no belief in- -generally
in Norfolk that there would be any closing of the schools. People refused
to face up to it.
Three of us aware of the fact that the schools were going to close
got together. One was James Brewer who was a Unitarian minister, who
was the only one that really had the down-the-line support from his
congregation, of any congregation in the entire city of Norfolk. Another
was and is a very good friend of mine Eugene Adair who was then and
still head of the Good Will Industries. And the three of us formed what
became the Committee for the Public Schools. We worked incessantly with
our friends to try to gain support. Over the entire summer we would
hold meetings and call up people and try to get them to attend and the
largest group I think we ever got out that summer – we didn’t
try for mass meeting or anything like that which would have been ridiculous
because the people didn’t believe that the schools were going
to close, despite the fact that Judge Hoffman had reversed the situation
in this sense of the term.
What had happened was that originally the case had been brought in
Arlington before it had been brought in Norfolk. Everyone was convinced
that the Arlington schools would be the ones that would have to take
the case. They had been the ones who’d been working up the legal
briefs. They had been the ones who were on the firing line. Since ours
had been filed- -since the Norfolk situation had come about later than
the Arlington one, everyone was - wait, I’m sorry, the case in
federal court ordering admission of students had been filed later in
Norfolk than it had up there – everyone was convinced that when
the order came down from the federal courts that Arlington would be
the one that would have to do the integration first. As the orders came
down though – I believe it was Judge Bryant but I’m not
certain at this stage in history, that is 16 years ago, as to who actually
filed the decision in the district court, but I think it was Judge Bryant
who stated that they would have to integrate but that they would not
have to do so till January. Here the judge, Judge Hoffman, ruled that
we would have to start integration of the schools in September. The
state ordered the closing of the schools in conformity with Virginia
law. The shock when this hit Norfolk would be difficult to answer- -difficult
to explain. Because of the fact that the people shouldn’t have
been shocked, they should have been prepared for this, they should have
been aware of the fact that under state law this was going to come about.
But they weren’t.
There was no real preparation for it. During the summer a good deal
of the time was spent in opening a whole series of schools to educate
the youngsters. We opened one on campus, and Dr. Fink was the principal
of the school that we ran on campus. We ran it in a building that no
longer even exists. It was opposite what is Chandler Hall, I don’t
think Chandler Hall was even in existence at that stage in 1958. But-
-no it wasn’t. But that’s where we opened it in a building
that was perfectly suited for it. We would have classes of 8 to 12 students
maximum in the various high school subjects. I taught a class at 8 o’clock
in the morning before I went over to teach on campus. The students were
well taught in most of these schools. The loyalty of the Norfolk teachers
to the public school system - it may be argued that it was partially
economic because of the retirement system and so forth – but the
fact that only one person, Hal Bonney was the only one who actually
left the public school system and went into a private school system.
The result was that the private school system where the schools were
set up for segregation purposes had to rely on retired teachers, on
parents who were not really qualified and set up a school system. They
were even talking, Hal Bonney was even talking about a whole series
of schools - he expected to be superintendent of a private school system,
with several private schools set up on a segregated basis around the
city. It didn’t materialize. The support that we got in fighting
for the public schools was really fantastic. But it was equally fantastic
to me having come down from New York State that people could accept
the idea that the schools would be closed. I remember one prominent
businessman was appoint- -was approached by Ken Harris who asked him,
“You mean to say that your attitude toward the public schools
is that the public schools are something provided by the rich for the
poor as long as the conform to the standards that the rich hold on such
thing as segregation?” And this industrial leader of Norfolk said
yes that that was exactly what his opinion of the public school system
was. The closing the schools was probably best described by Principal
William Harrell of Granby High School, the husband of Ruth Harrell who
was on our campus, and he described it as secession from intelligence.
So that this was a move that really defies any understanding in terms
of 1974 and our approach to the situation. But we know that the situation
was much worse in Prince Edward County than it ever was here in Norfolk
schools because it lasted so long. And the whole situation was almost
as if we were living in a world that made no sense really in terms of
the needs of the community. You asked about the question of whether
we met with hostility – the answer was yes. There was very serious
hostility on the part of the followers of Bill Story for example who
later ran for governor, principally on a segregationist platform. There
was hostility from several self-righteous groups in the community. And
some of the people – we were not – but some of the people
in the community were badgered by telephone calls at 3:00 in the morning
and badgered in other ways. The faculty cooperated wonderfully in providing
the people to teach the- -in this private school on campus to keep our
children educated. I sent one daughter, a senior, off to New York State
to get public school education there because of the fact that there
was not really a way in which these small private schools that were
set up on a temporary basis until the schools could be reopened could
provide proper education in the field of the sciences. That was the
chief difficulty; there were other difficulties in trying to operate
this school. Interestingly enough, there was tremendous enthusiasm on
the part of the students. They suddenly realized that public education
was not something that they could take for granted, that they might
lose it. And this really awakened many students who were not really
academically inclined to suddenly realize what it could mean to them.
And this type enthusiasm ran in all of the schools. Many of the churches
cooperated by running schools in the city. The calmness in Norfolk was
so beyond belief that Life magazine ran an article on it. You would
expect that with the number of white students who were on the streets,
because they just couldn’t get into any of these schools because
they were all very small schools and because they didn’t know
where else to go, that there would be problems. But actually there was
less crime; there were fewer problems generally in dealing with young
people than we’ve had at almost any time that I can remember in
a period in Norfolk of thirty years. The referendum campaign was a rather
mixed blessing but chiefly against us. I don’t know whether you
have a copy of the wording that was used on the referendum for opening
the schools. But the referendum was not written in any fairness. It
was written in such a way as to say that if the schools were reopened
that the parents would have to provide a high, very high tuition payment
for the students in the public schools. There was no basis whatsoever
for the statement. We argued that the statement should never have been
allowed on the ballot, that it had no place on the question of whether
we wanted a public school system or not. However the Council was so
adamant against us that there was just no way of getting them to deal
with it. We tried a case and Judge Eggleston – and I can’t
remember who else listened to it. I tried to work with the lawyer who
had been hired by our group. You see our group started with just the
three of us but by the fall we actually had six thousand people in Norfolk
who had contributed a dollar to the- -so we had six thousand one-dollar
members in the system. And I believe I mentioned on the earlier tape
the fact that segregation was so much the order of the day and we were
so much afraid of accepting any money from any blacks that we returned
the dollars that were sent to us from the black community and thanked
them but said in view of the situation that operated in Norfolk at that
time we did not feel that we would be able to accept fund- -those funds.
So that we operated purely as a white group. This was an essential feature.
And this in itself sounds unusual, but it was an essential feature to
our success in getting anywhere in the operation in trying to get the
schools reopened. What I tried to get this attorney who was hired by
our group to understand was that this was really an unjustifiable basis
for a referendum because no one had a right to put a statement on the
referendum which could be either true or false and make this as a statement
of fact for people to understand in voting for the referendum. The lawyer
could not seem to get this through his head. He said, “Yes, I
understand, it’s a blackjack over the people.” And I said
that isn’t the point. It is a blackjack over the people; it is
a threat to hit ‘em over the head with this. But the point of
the matter is this is made as a statement of fact on the referendum.
There is no way that anybody can make this as a statement of fact, and
therefore it should be taken off the referendum. Well, this we were
ineffective with. We knew with this on the referendum that it would
be a miracle if we were able to win the referendum with that on it because
we were not talking about a public school system. We were talking about
a private school system. We were simply saying that it would be called
a public school system and for teachers’ pay and for teachers’
retirement and for other things it would be part of the public school
system, but it would still be a private school system since the parents
were voting on a situation where the presumption was that they would
have to pay a very sizable tuition to reopen the schools. We did lose
the referendum; there was no way we could have won it with that on it.
We did not feel that it was fair, but this was used in adverse propaganda
against us. Businessmen did not give us support at the time when it
was needed. At this stage of the game help from the businessmen at the
time of the referendum could have been tremendously important to us.
Of the businessmen in Norfolk I would like to pay tribute to Mr. Harry
Mansback as one who really did come out for us. There were men who came
out for us in the business and professional community, but people would
not allow us to use their name and this really didn’t help us.
We needed to have that help, we didn’t get it at the time. We
therefore went into the courts – we had no choice, there was no
way to win it except to go into the courts – went into the courts
on both the national basis and on the state basis. The case was heard
very quickly in the national courts. Judge Hoffman very wisely held
off handing down his decision until such time as the state court of
appeals could hear the and make the final decision on the reopening
of the schools. Under Judge Eggleston, a very courageous judge from
Norfolk, the decision of the court of appeals was that the- -that we
could not under our constitution, under the 1954 decision operate segregated
schools system. Which I think any of us who had any knowledge of the
situation at all as far as constitutional law was concerned knew that
that would be impossible. As soon as the court handed down its decision
which as I remember was seven to two, the- -five to two, I think we
may have seven men on our court of appeals- -but as soon as that was
handed- -Supreme Court now, at that time called the Supreme Court of
Appeals- -as soon as that decision was handed down Judge Hoffman’s
decision was handed down. In both the cases the plaintiffs bringing
the action were people on our Norfolk Committee for the Public Schools.
As soon as it became inevitable that the schools were going to open
and the decisions were handed down, then the business community –
and I’m not going to mention the name of the banker who actually
held up the business community from commitment for months and months
before he finally acceded and agreed to put his name in and they wouldn’t
come in without him – when that was finally done I think that
what the action of the business community did was to help us so to when
the schools were opened that they were opened very calmly. That’s
the story of 1958 and the closed schools.
Sweeney: In 1972 you spoke before the City Counc- -
Stern: Oh, I might mention- -let me mention one name, if you want a
little bit more information, would be Dr. Forrest P. White who was the
man who headed up the committee after it was reformed in the fall and
who had a good bit of material on this and wrote an article which was
I believe produced in Harper’s. I’m not sure but it was
one of the leading magazines and I believe Harper’s.
Sweeney: In 1972 you spoke before the City Council in February on the
advertising campaign that the City of Norfolk was conducting in business
magazines in which they emphasized the cheap labor aspect of the Norfolk
economy, specifically related to the employment of secretaries. Could
you comment on this.
Stern: I can. I would say that this is more or less the mountain-molehill
type of relationship coming after the closing of the schools. What happened
was you can get this secretary- -what they did was they reproduced the
same photograph on the left and right side of the page and said you
can get this secretary for 2,000 dollars less a year – I don’t
know whether that’s an accurate figure – the one on the
left than the one on the right, being the same picture. And the point
being that New York secretarial costs would be about at least 2,000
a year higher than it would be in Norfolk. And this would be true in
other urban communities. The feeling of many students and my own feeling
and reason for going to the City Council was that I thought that this
was wrong. I think that Norfolk has a great deal that’s positive
to offer, but I think it would be very sad for us to try to bring labor
in to Norfolk on the same basis that labor has been brought to- -I don’t
mean, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean labor, I didn- -meant bring
companies into Norfolk on the same basis it’s been brought into
to a good part of the South, namely the idea of cheap labor. The difficulty
of using the attraction of cheap labor to bring corporations into a
community is that by and large the type of corporations that are attracted
by the cheap labor advertising are the kind of corporations which are
actually low-wage paying. You can not afford to bring into a community
a corporation or company that pays below the average wage of the community.
You’re actually having a depressing effect upon the overall wage
structure when you do. If you have nothing else to offer I can understand
this being done, but I think Norfolk has a tremendous amount to offer.
I think that the Old Dom- -that Old Dominion University ought to be
one of the points that’s used in advertising this community. I
think Norfolk State ought to be used, and Virginia Wesleyan, the fact
that we have several community colleges. I think that the cultural advantages,
the fact that we have a very fine symphony orchestra in Norfolk in comparison
with many communities the size of the city and that it is under competent
direction. I think that the fact that we have many recreational advantages,
the fact that we have pretty perfect climate, the fact that we have
the world’s largest natural harbor, which is something of a positive
nature. I just objected to the fact that Norfolk community should use
the type of advertising which emphasizes the fact that you can get labor
cheaper here than you can someplace else, because I don’t think
that this is the type of advertising that really pays off. And that
was the objection that I made. I spoke about the fact that we were trying
to upgrade the community in the advertising that we’re using in
getting people into Scope, that we did have a fine public library here
which had been an excellent addition – and if you had ever seen
what the old library was like here in Norfolk, although I think that
was before your time, Jim, you’d know what I’m talking about
as a tremendous improvement. And I would say that that type of positive
thinking should be what Norfolk should go after. It may be difficult,
and I think this is clever, I don’t say it wasn’t a very
clever type of advertising. But I think it’s also a type of advertising
that undermines a community and really hurts in the long run even it
does some good in the short run in such an operation. That’s the
reason I went down, I felt I was received very nicely by the City Council
that couldn’t have been, really, more friendly in the reaction
that they had to this discussion and some of the students such as Mrs.
Lyons who spoke also spoke exceedingly well, and I think the college
should be proud of those who spoke for this.
Sweeney: Professor Stern, You wanted to make some remarks upon the Old
Dominion College Lecture Series in the early 1960’s.
Stern: Yes, this was my own brainchild. It seemed to me that one of
the things that Old Dominion could do was to bring its professors to
the people by bringing the people to the college and that this combination
was going to be a worthwhile endeavor. What we did was we had a series
of lectures, most of them on Sunday afternoon, and they were held in
the library in a very fine room and that was very fine for that purpose.
It could seat a few hundred people. It would give some of our outstanding
professors on campus an opportunity to talk on their specialty in a
way that was designed to draw attention to the work that’s done
on campus and as a way of getting some of the campus people to give
a talk to the community. Because, after all, any city university or
college as we were then owes its existence to a tremendous degree to
the community. And we should never forget the fact that the Junior Chamber
of Commerce in Norfolk was one of the agencies – was possibly
the agency that was most responsible for the expansion of Old Dominion
College into a university and even had a study made of the way in which
this could be done. The … idea being to use mostly our own professors
with one or two a year to be brought in from the outside. This was not
just for financial reasons, but this was for the idea of expressing
our appreciation to the univers- -to the community by bringing people
here- -
[Tape Stops]
Stern: - - In an article in the … well, first of all let me state
that we received wonderful cooperation from the newspapers who outlined
the series for the year before the series started and then devoted a
good deal of coverage to the individual lectures as they came along.
So that we felt that this was exceedingly worthwhile. In the 1962-63
series Dr. Ernest Rhodes of the English faculty, who’s still with
us, talked on the new- - reconstruction of a typical Elizabethan theatre
which he himself had erected under his direction and was a very fine
physical reproduction of the, I believe, Globe Theatre insofar as it
could be reproduced. And in addition to that Dr. de Bedts of the History
Department who is also still with us spoke on the ____________ the investor.
Dr. Zaneveld who’s been with us through the years spoke about
marine life in Curacao. And Dr. Bowdoin who has since left talked on
the sales tax in Virginia. Dr. T. Ross Fink head of the School of Education
at that time spoke on the year-round school, and Dean J. Harold Lampe
spoke on the future of engineering education and its application to
Old Dominion Un- -College. In 1961 we brought in Ralph Eisenberg who
was one of the leading teachers in the Bureau of Public Administration
and in the Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University
of Virginia, a man who gave us a very excellent talk on his research
in urban areas in Virginia. And we also had a talk from a man by the
name of Michener who worked with the corporation that built the Chesapeake
Bay Bridge-Tunnel, and he spoke to us in the ‘63-‘64 series.
So that it was an interesting experience. Unfortunately it did not attract
a sizable enough audience. The problem of Sunday afternoons and in fact
the problem really became a problem of when people would attend. And
we were not able to find any time that would attract enough people to
make it worthwhile to ask the faculty to continue to prepare scholarly
addresses which at the same time had popular appeal, so that ultimately
we were forced for that reason to discontinue the series. Even though
I think it’s still a worthwhile idea and one that is possible
that the college may undertake some day again in the future under proper
circumstances.
Sweeney: Thank you, Professor Stern.
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