In the ’70s, 5Cs dismissed student requests for increased Black enrollment

Averi Sullivan

Later this spring, the U.S. Supreme Court is slated to release a decision on whether to uphold race as a consideration in the college admissions process. The looming opinion comes just over 50 years since the policy’s introduction in Claremont and could potentially overturn affirmative action, a practice that faced several setbacks when initially established in 1965.

Following the Black Student Union’s (BSU) initial calls for greater diversity efforts at the 5Cs, the colleges’ presidents agreed in May 1968 to raise Black student admission to ten percent or higher at each college within the next five years. By 1971, however, admissions departments across the 5Cs were already shirking their responsibility.

In Feb. 1971, the Claremont McKenna College Admissions and Financial Aid Department released a statement that rejected the original enrollment agreement of 1968.

According to the Claremont Collegian, the CMC report stated, “[We] admit that the college agreed to offer admission to 10 percent of black students. [But] the College does not wish to commit itself to any set quotas of minority enrollments.”

By the time early BSU students activists had established the Black Studies Center and inclusive housing policies for students of color in 1969, Black enrollment across the 5Cs experienced a staggering decline.

The Pomona College Admissions Office reported less diversity on campus. In a 1972 TSL article, admissions counselor Cynthia Stork said, “Fewer minority students [are] accepting offers of admission to Pomona.”

The number of Black students at CMC began to dwindle even earlier, making up just six percent of the college’s student body by 1971.

5C administrators appeared reluctant to put any fault on their admissions policies. Instead, faculty committees such as CMC’s Admission and Financial Aid Committee blamed financial burden and academic unfitness.

“The report says that the College believes that attempts to reach quotas could lead to a reduced academic quality,” Rob Langworthy wrote for the Claremont Collegian.

“[The committee] adds that such students ‘must meet the usual standards of quality’ [and] ‘made it clear that money could be a critical limiting factor.’”

The faculty committee found no value in retaining the quota agreement for its admissions, a practice that California banned in 1978.

But students on the Committee on Alternative Education released a statement in support of quotas in admission policies.

“We urge all students to support the BSU in their struggle to attain the educational equality that has been promised them,” the joint statement on behalf of the committee read in a 1971 TSL guest-opinion . The BSU’s admissions policies in favor of quotas also garnered support from faculty. Black Studies Center Director Donald Cheek spoke at a CMC faculty meeting in Mar. 1971, on behalf of the BSU, to advocate for the BSU’s original enrollment demands.

“The colleges have been looking for loopholes in the 1968 agreement, particularly in denial of scholarships for financial reasons,” Cheek said. “Because of the racist society we function in, Black and Chicano families will need more aid.”

TSL reported on CMC Assistant Professor Barbee-Sue Rodman’s eight page rebuttal addressed to CMC’s committee’s claims that affirmative action lowered the academic standard of applicants.

“[Regarding] reduced academic quality, Rodman observes that neither CMC nor other colleges admit students ‘simply on the basis of academic or intellectual merit,’” TSL reported. “Instead, Rodman says other considerations ... are also used to determine an entrant’s potential contribution.”

According to the BSU, CMC’s report attempted to justify racial discrimination in admissions and avoid retention of Black students throughout the school year.

In a letter sent to then-CMC President Jack Stark, the BSU questioned whether the college lacked the funds to support a scholarship for students of color or had chosen not to. However, CMC’s Dean of Students Clifton Macleod and President Jack Stark rejected the BSU’s claims of any racial discrimination.

“President Jack Stark called the accusations ‘not true,’ [charging] that [the BSU] intended to ‘build tension and distrust,’” Bill Weirick of the Collegian wrote at the time. “According to MacLeod and Stark, the most frequent reason given for black students leaving was ... ‘flunking out.’ However [MacLeod] said that he felt that anyone admitted to CMC should be able to make it academically [and] he ‘accepts the challenge.’”

CMC faculty opted to settle the quota contention with a mailin vote, ultimately approving the CMC’s Admission and Financial Aid Committee’s admission and financial aid policy without any set quotas.

Administrators weren’t the only ones to oppose affirmative action policies. Professors did too.

In the fall of 1972, Pomona professor Charles King published an opinion against the practice to which student Jeanne Rosenmeir PO ’74 refuted.

“Mr. King spends 3 1/2 columns out of four discussing the case in which, of two people vying for the same position, the white male is clearly better qualified,”Rosenmeier wrote in TSL. “Mr. King is advocating a maintenance of the status quo until someone can come up with a scheme for helping women and blacks get a toehold without inconveniencing the white males.”

The faculty and student responses to affirmative action eventually caught the attention of 5C administrators. Just a month after the published opinions, the 5Cs held an “Affirmative Action Workshop” at Harvey Mudd College with a representative from the federal Office of Civil Rights and Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The full-day workshop discussed “new guidelines for higher education [and] explore problems in the application of the guidelines.”

Soon after, the Claremont University Center Affirmative Action Committee released an “Affirmative Action Plan” stating their support for equality in education.

“Claremont University Center recognizes ... that affirmative action requires additional efforts to recruit, employ, and promote qualified members of groups which may have been formerly excluded,” CUC’s joint statement said. “In the case of both minorities and women, the figures have been reviewed and there does not seem to be evidence of clustering.”

The action committee found that only five Black professors of 63 total faculty members held “higher level administrative positions” across the 5C. Only one Black faculty member did not work as an administrator connected to the Black Studies Center or Chicano Studies Center.

Despite any student and faculty fervor regarding affirmative action, the 5C Committee was adamant that it was not necessary to use affirmative action to change enrollment and hiring policies. So, any effect on Black enrollment and employment was dismal after the enactment of the 5C Affirmative Action Plan. Rosenmeier, who covered the 5Cs’ responses to affirmative action and graduated from Pomona in 1974, recently sat down for an interview with TSL. She recalled no interactions with faculty and students of color at all, following the 5C pushback in affirmative action and diversity recruiting.

“There weren’t very many Black students. I didn’t know anyone that was Black at Pomona. I don’t remember having an interaction of any kind, actually,” Rosenmeier said. “But I can say that as an outsider, the discrimination was not subtle. Oh God, it was everywhere.”

‘Sworn to secrecy’: Professor Angela Davis’ teaching at the 5Cs

Some faculty, students and staff might recall Angela Davis’ recent visit in 2021 for a talk at Pomona College or her 2016 visit to Scripps College as a guest speaker for the interview series “Conversations.” What may be lesser known, however, is that Angela Davis was once a lecturer at the Claremont Colleges. Davis is a Black political activist, prison abolitionist, Marxist, feminist and academic. Just four years before she joined the staff at the now defunct intercollegiate Black Studies Center (BSC) in 1975, she was at the center of a highly publicized trial that propelled her to national fame.

In Nov. 1971, the Claremont Collegian reported that 5C students organized a protest against Davis’ trial. “Rally Speakers Decry Apathy, Support Davis,” the headline read.

While acquitted of all charges, the California case established Davis as one of the faces of the Black Power Movement, intersectionality and prison abolition. Her open opposition to white supremacy and Black radicalism caught the attention of students and faculty at the 5Cs.

In Oct. 1973, Dr. James Garrett assumed the role of Director at the BSC with plans to hire and recruit full-time professors. One of those professors was Angela Davis, who would join the faculty in Sept. 1975 to teach the history of Black women at the center. However, her arrival caused controversy. According to the New York Times, a concerted effort was made by the CMC and Scripps administration to resist her hiring at the Black Studies Center.

“Angered alumni and wealthy benefactors who had talked of canceling their bequest to the richly endowed schools have received letters explaining that [all thought] Miss Davis’s $3,000 contract with the Claremont Black Studies Center was ‘unauthorized and regrettable,’” the New York Times reported.

In May 1975, shortly before Davis’s arrival, the MC Board of Trustees Chairman Jon B. Lovelace Jr. threatened to revoke CMC’s support of the Black and Chicano Studies Center in a letter to Dr. Garrett, if they did not reconsider their hiring choices.

However, Dr. Garrett did not rescind his offer to Davis. Instead, he opted to extend the contract offer to Davis. According to TSL, on the same day Angela Davis later signed the contract, Dr. Garrett was fired from the BSC.

“The thought crossed my mind that the intention may have been to embarrass us, [the Black Studies Center,” Garrett said in a Nov. 1975 interview with The Observer. “The [administration] said it would be all right. We’ve had Marxists here before.”

According to college administrators at the time, Dr. Garrett acted on his own to hire Davis, although he later alleged that he followed normal hiring protocol.

By the time the BSC brought

COurTeSy: TSL DeC. 1975 renowned activist and academic angela Davis’s time in Claremont was shrouded in secrecy despite student efforts to call out admin’s treatement toward Davis.

Davis on, the center was still in its infancy after years of studentdriven activism. Years of activist efforts from the Black Student Union eventually culminated in the construction of the center focused on Black studies but the pathway was marred by tumultuous setbacks, including the silencing of professors like Davis. Davis ultimately taught for one semester because her contract was not renewed. While she was in Claremont, however, administrators took efforts to conceal her presence on campus by limiting her course size to 25 students all of whom were “sworn to secrecy,” according to New York Times reporting.

Additionally, the location of the class was kept secret and changed each week.

However, the student body was far from quiet about Davis’ time in Claremont. “I can’t see how Angela Davis will hurt the colleges,” Joel Kuperberg, ASPC President said in an article with TSL. “It’s stupid to avoid controversy in an educational institution.”

Other opinions published in TSL touched on academic freedom amid calls for transparency while messages on Walker Wall acknowledged her presence, despite having been shrouded in secrecy.

May 1973 BSC goes independent, cutting ties with the Human Resources Institute

May 1973

March 1974 5C Presidents announced $30,000 cut to the 1974-1975 BSC budget

Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran PO ‘69 appointed as BSC Director of Admissions

Oct. 1973

Dr. James Garrett appointed director of BSC

Sept. 1974 Enrolled Black students at Pomona dropped to 98

March 1974 Claremont Courier exposes significant discrepancies between Black enrollment numbers reported by 5Cs and Black admissions offices

May 1975 Coalition of Students of Color (CSC) condemn BSC and CSC budget cuts

May 1975 Dr. James Garrett hired Angela Davis; Garrett fired soon after

May 1975 5C Presidents removed full-time faculty budgets at BSC and Chicano Studies Centers and cut summer programs

May 1975 BSC and CSC demand reinstatement of summer programs and faculty tenure

Oct. 1975

Oct. 1975 Lebaron M. Woodyard appointed Director of Black Admissions