Waiting for the Cavalry: Confessions of an Affirmative Action Coordinator

New Directions

Volume 6 | Issue 1

Article 7

10-1-1978

Waiting for the Cavalry: Confessions of an

Affirmative Action Coordinator

Art Lathan

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Recommended Citation

Lathan, Art (1978) "Waiting for the Cavalry: Confessions of an Affirmative Action Coordinator,"New Directions: Vol. 6: Iss. 1, Article 7.

22

Waiting for

TheCavalry

Confessions of

an Affirmative Action

Coordinator

NEWDIRECTIONSOCTOBER.197B

ILLUSTRATION BY BRUCE FAGIN

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By Art Lathan

Let me explain. I'm talking prima.

First of all I'd like to make it known that about university faculty members. -I don't plan to leave myjob asthecoor- non-teaching staff personnelare fine. _

dinate point for affirmative actions on a go along with the program,but thefaCC'

-universitycampus.The PeterPrinciple has will go along with nothing. This iscal

=-come home to roost.Where else can I academic freedom. It is this differ

make such a handsome salary by just that makes facu Itybehavior so pred ictat

=

leaving people alone? I wish the same and manipulable. I stroke it by lea - _ luxury onallmy children and theirchildren them alone and provoke it byaskingthe:

-too until the need for affirmative action no what have they done for me lately.

longer exists or until Bakke wins, which- don't want to do anything for anyboc; ever comes sooner.But first I must gather Their mission is to teach you how todo _

my offspring into a circle and career orient yourself.This is called self-actual izati

them.A suitable, straight forward expla- Truthfully,iffaculty behaviorwas entire

nation of my dutiesis hard to come by.My predictable, the job would soon

beco

ra

children cannot understand what I have dull.However,it'sthe stratagems andI' -to do with jobs if I can't hire or fire. I games we play together that keep thin~ sometimes find it difficult to comprehend happening for me.Their attempts to aboc

myself. or subvert the program range fromignor

-I must explain that my job is lonely, ing myentreaties to broadfrontalassau -frustrating, and more often unrewarding interspersed with "holier than thou" pro

-yet I recommend it highly.The only ration- nouncements. My scores come from rTJ)

ale that I can put forward with any confi- counter-ignorances, up to full exposure

dence is that a university campus is the of their intransigence, mixed with afey,

best laboratoryofhuman behavior imag- wicked barbs here and there.I particularfy

inable in such concentration. Observing enjoy the one about the best brains inthe

human behavior is my hobby.Better still, country being unable to produce gradu

-I discovered-after a few months on cam- ates who can read and write well,which

pus-that I need not be a passive observer suggests a creative change is due.Illi

ter-ofhuman behavior,as Icould participate. ate faculty might possibly generate liter -if I wanted to and play it tomy liking. It's ate students. Thatiscalled one-ups-man -easy here. I could stroke itor provoke it ship. Very often I lose,but the few wins depending on what response I desired for keep me playing.

~ David versus Goliath dimensions of

-"" right. Myisolation is Iike no other con

--==:-on.I have no counterpart oncampus, - ides thejan itor with whom Icanco

m-- serate, and no authority except that

Oedin me by "The Boss." To invoke authoritytoo ofen isto risk either

em-zarrassment or being fired so I tryto keep

-0 decisions in the lower courts to ma in--=- somecredibility for my position. Even

-0 minority faculty members look upon -,:=.with some wariness, trying to decide -ether I'm fish or fowl. I happen to be a

=

-

- line authority, I am still expected to

e access to confidential information,

inarily available only to top adminis

-- rs.Ifinformation isgolden,confide

n-- information is likediamonds and my - cuisitiveness quite oftenevokesthe re

-er that I am tolerated only through

::::grace of the "Feds." Consequently, I

iciously use the threat of the cavalry _ loping to my rescue.Of course, the

::::valrynever arrivesbutthe diversion al-for a little facesaving for bothsides. amfully aware that federal legislation

:::Bated my job, outlined my duties, and :c-eme everything I needed tosuccess

-- /y implement affirmative action except

_ aslingshot. I was a little naivewhen I

- tarrived a few years ago. I knew that

=5rrnative action had successfully oper-in the private sector for more than

"

I had even done

a

little

research beforehand

on

the

problems

so

that I could be

a

helpful partner."

five years and I deduced from this that institutionsof hiqhereducation need only

bereminded that aproblem existed and they would brainstorm aneven more ef-fective affirmative action course. I had even done a Iittle research beforehand on the problems so that I could beahelpful partner I knew all about the relative posi-tions ofwomen and minorities. Iknew,for instance, that the Chinese were the highest academic achievers- by all measurements- of any other ethnic groups, including whites.I fully expected meritto be awarded accordingly. Imagine my surprise then to discover that the Chinesefacultywas no betterrepresented

oncampusthan theBlackfaculty. Gradually, I became awarethat some

-thing was awry. The faculty already was

moreawareabouttheproblem than I,for they hadcreated boththe problem and the awareness.I then began toask ques -tionsand get educated.Why? Professional

sports has already broken the barrier of Black head coaches,why wasn't higher education first? Or,concurrently,are there any minority head coaches at major col-leges still? I was amazed that in fields where Blacks were well-represented

out-23

side the walls,they werepractically no

n-existent inside. Where are the students and teachers in music? Whenfully o ne-fourthof thecurrent hitson Broadway are Black productions, one would think dra -matic artsdepartments would haves ig-nificant Blacktalent. Notso.Why?Isit the supply problem?That'sthe answer-and also the solution-I'm told. Butwho co n-trols supply? "We do," I'm admonished. I was astonished.

Within a few months of my arrival, most spent in a daze within the maze,I dis -covered that academicians are aclever bunch.Iwas liberated bythis revelation.

They've one-upped the blue-suede-shoe

crowd by devising a way to have their

cakeand sell it too.While remainingthe most segregated public institution,they havesold the idea that theyare liberal, the bastion of freedom,free thought,

de-mocracy and all those wonderful things. They gotthe good housekeeping sealof

approval for a commodity theyneverput

onthemarketbutdenounced instead.

I'm somewhat wiser now but Ishould have beensuspiciousof their record prior to federal intervention when faculties

doubled during the sixties and women and minorityfacultylost ground?And did you know that insupport of theirsolution of a better supply, academicians are busily at work to restrict the supply of minority students coming into the

24 line?Tounderstand this isto understand the dichotomy of faculty action-their

cleverness.Their preachment/sales pitch is to do what's right,and uphold quality standards.Academicians see a conflict in the twin objectives but they won't reveal thisto youdirectly. Nevertheless,the mes -sagehasbeencoming throughobliquely

fordecades. It'sanotherone oftheir do-it

-yourself projects, i.e.we make the know

l-edgeavailable andyou do whatyou must

with it.

Nowcomesone of mymost earthshak

-ing discoveries. Let me return to mypre -vious assertionthat academicians created both the problem and the awareness. If you are made aware that minorities are inherently incapable of risingtothest and-ardsnecessaryto aquality institutionyou won't insiston their inclusion. The prob

-lem then becomes yours onwhat to do with these rejects,and social costs must be paid elsewhere leaving universities free and clear. Would you believe that I

found out that academicians have led the enlightened world inadvancing theories of racial superiority?

Thedemi-gods of science have taken

over where the bible left off. On every campus there are pretenders to the thrones ofWilliam Shockley,Arthur Jen

-sen,HansEysenckandalegionofothers. Yet no one aspiresto be a GunnarMyrdal. How can we play cops and robbers if

everybody wantsto be thecops? Money seemsto be no barrier to their blunder-buss like thrustsforenlightenment. Hardly a semestergoesbythatall administrators are notprovided freecopies ofthe latest anti-affirmative action tract, usually well -researched, expensive, and full offacts, figures,anddocumented condemnations.

Reversediscrimination isthevisible ar

-gument but beneath itisthe holy grai l-1.0.tests andtheinability ofsalvationfor minorities. Little doubts invade my co

n-victions from timeto time and Icheck fi g-ures again. Youwon't believe this but if

reverse discrimination were a dreaded disease, there would not be enough

NEW DIRECTIONS OCTOBER, 1978

around toprovide oneprofessoran appli

-cationfora federal research grant.

"Race ratings

on

the scientific

scale probably began with the

recapitulation

theories of the

late 1800s."

My education remains incomplete be

-cause I can never understand why one race mustbesuperiorto all others except

that thesearch fortruthmustgoforward and theproofmustbediscovered, again

andagain.Oh yes,theproofchangesfrom time to time, yet the conclusions never vary.Race ratings onthe scientific scale probably began with the recapitulation theories ofthe late1800s.Recapitulation means that each baby in its mother's womb, during its nine months develop

-ment, repeatsthe adult stages of all its evolutionary ancestors including thefish. As best asIcanunderstand this,aPro -fessor Daniel Brinton read(1890)the se

-quenceofhuman development asobvious proofofAfrican inferiority since Africans were still children i.e.retained more juv e-nile traits, Thencomes along alater dem

i-god,Professor L.Bolk,who in 1926

inter-preted the process (Neotony) in just the opposite manner. Itwas retentionofour

ancestors' juveniIestagesthatledtothe higher humanevolution.Inother words,if

your embryo resembled anundeveloped fish,rather than afullydeveloped fish,you are now prime material. Did thischange reverse the hierarchy of race superiority? No indeed,itnow meant thatAfricans'de

-velopment regressed beyondthecoveted juvenile stages which of course made them inferior still.And all this wasscience held tojust as firmly asthecurrent holy grail, 1.0.tests.

A prol iferation ofproofsof inferiorityhas

marched by, some discarded, some changing shapesdepending on thesize

of brains,lengthsoflegcalves,you name

it. One of the better ones,developed in 18608by the French Anatom ist Etienne Serres,was that Black males were more

primitive because the distance between

thei rbellybutton andthei rpenis wasr ela-tively shorter than thatof whitemales.

Ifthe relationships between belly but

-tonsand brainshaveyouconfused,I hope

youare notshaken to learn that therehave

been reversals in interpretations of 1.0.

tests. You bet.Changesnevertease, even

inour cognition, TheStanfordBinet (the Cadillac of 1.0. tests) was first used in

1912 as an instrumenttolimitimmigration

totheUnited Statesofcertain European stock. Thenasnow,itsuccessfullymetits objective.Morethan80%ofall Jews,Hu n-garians,and Russianstestedas "fee ble-minded" andthusnotwelcome to the club. The test targets have now changed but the testresultsremain thesame.

Any hopes that 1.0.tests,which survived the historical rolechange,would perse -vereto become theultimate proof of racial

superiority were severelyhurtrecently by

therevelation thatanother late,impecca -bledemi-god, Sir Cyril Burt,hadfalsified important data. I'll be damned if this wasn't the data that Jensen et al. had

based most of their racial premises on.

Wonders nevercease. The hardships of

the struggle for enlightenment on the white man's burden hasnot been borne by the behaviorists alone. Historians, artists,electronic engineers,allhavec on-tributed. Given thesetransient race theo

-ries,coupled with aPlessy vs.Ferguson or an Alan Bakke,themedia, the Gallup Poll, and eventually the courts topple over likedominoes behind onecomplaint thata white man'srightswereinjeopardy.

The next theory just hasto bethe rightone. Through the discovery method, Iwas able to finally analyze one of myproblems as affirmative actioncoordinator was that

Ihad no status in astatus-conscious ci

r-cus of academicians. At the top of the ringsarethewidely published professors whi Iepart-time lecturers supportthe bot -tom.Mylevelissubterranean,Sincemost

of the academicians' time is spent up -holding standards, they have little time

st save my limited shareoftheirsocial

- enities far the fewtimes Ican corner

m in closed door official sessians erethereareno.readyexits.Thenthey

~ it an.I'mcaptivated by theircharming . ,amiable banter, when I'mArtthey're b,Jim,or Jeff.Iconstantly miss the op

-rtunity far a kiss and farewell when

z

es

e

may neversee them again. Theyhave Iked within afew inchesaf me across

:::cmpuswithautso.muchas a glance that

couId detect. They haveperfected the

zchnique ofsimultaneauslyavaiding eye

:ootact and farcing you to.scurryautaf

irwayto.avoid acollision. Theircleve r-snever ceasesto.amaze me.

Fartunately,this behavior af the stand

-=.,'"d bearers of the enlightened world is

=.:;endedby mypassionate belief in their

_.acy-mine too.Yet Iwishthey would

'9SOrtto.seeing-eye dags which Icould

an the head as their owners walked

_ . Ithelps thaugh to.have a full social

-=e outside the wall ifyou are wanting far

- an contact. An outside social life

resyou the ordeal af what Icall the -coken-recard question, "What do. you

- ?" In any campussocial gathering this

usuallyyour introduction to.astranger.

-;)(j the question can came befare you eal your name."What do.yau-what do.

da-what do. you daa-?" I'm in

annel administratian, I coordinate

=-

itsnot reverse action,oh hell!" I'm es

-ially sensitive to. this question, as I tianed befare,because I'mstill trying

sort it aut for my children's needs. I

lize it's an anxiousattemptto.discover

- what you do. makes you interesting

- ugh to. spend a few momentswith;

veve«, mast of us Blacks are accus

-edto.papping thequestionof a living

afterthe interest getsheavy.Perhaps

isan inefficient useaf time but why

-...sh to.make orbreakan alliance?

Ihave digressed considerably. Social

tactsar avoidance thereafisjust aside eto.the really high railers. Thereal

"

I

once

spent

a

whole day

trying to convince

an

eminent

professor.

t

hat

i

t was possible

to provide

an

ethnic breakdown

of his department."

dramatics are played aut aver the tele-phone,usually. lance spenta whale day

trying to.convince an eminent professor that it was possible to.provide anethnic breakdawn of his department. He gave

me 11dazen reasons why a wamanwith

lh6th Croatian blood would not fit anany chart. I responded with 11 dazen and 1 reasons an haw it could be dane. The professor followed up our telephone ca

n-versatian with a bristling memo. unde r-scaring his incredulity-samething about

18thcenturyEnglish taxaccountantswho.

fargat thatstatistics must came fram the figures gathered bythe vi Ilage watchman

who. puts dawn what he damn well

pleases.Iignared the missile far a sui

ta-bleinterval and was aboutto.resartto.full

exposure when his repo.rtcame in.His

department of 75 faculty was composed campletely ot "Native Americans." As I

said earlier,quite aftenI lase.

Then therewas the time Iwas elated after a telephone call detailing haw ex -tensivelyminarities hadbeen notified ot a

particular jab vacancy. Elated, that is,

untiIIgat a letterfram a gentin Bangalare,

India, inquiring why his namewas being

cansidered far a jab henever applied far

nor even heardaf.Bythen therecru itment

process had already beenblessedbyme

and the white-male hired. I had been had again.

You mayaskwhataresame af my vic

-taries.Isupposemyangaingvictory isthe freeeducatian unwittingly provided bymy

mentors and Iamstimulated every morn

-ing just thinking about what the game ot

the day will be. I began each marning

withashort meditation,maythe games ot

this day bring clear victories or clean defeats-no. ties, no.indignities. I ca n-tinue to.demand my reports, the village watchmen continueto.put dawnwhat they

damn well please,myfigures provethat

we are anaffirmative action employer. I

knaw,they know, andnaw you knawb

e-cause I'm canfessing. And the cavalry neverarrives. 0

25

Art Lathan isaffirmative action coordinator atSan Francisco State University: