U. grad students boycott speech

History graduate students hung signs from their necks and proclaimed slogans like "Boycott Davis, Boycott Yale," as they lined the hallway outside of the History Department Lounge yesterday afternoon. More than 10 students participated, protesting a speech by Yale University History Professor David Brion Davis. The students handed out fliers encouraging people to boycott Davis' speech and support the right of graduate students to unionize. According to the protesters, Davis wrote a letter to Yale Graduate School Dean Thomas Applequist complaining that his teaching assistant Diana Paton refused to turn in grades as part of the recent Yale teaching assistant strike. Davis also testified against the third-year Yale History graduate student at the hearing which occurred as a result of the strike. In spite of the controversy surrounding his appearance, only about 25 people turned out to hear Davis speak as part of the Annenberg seminar series. Davis spoke about his paper entitled "Exodus, Black Colonization and Promised Lands," which discusses the efforts of the American Colonization Society, or ACS, to send emancipated slaves to Liberia. He also talked about the ACS's influence on black nationalists like Marcus Garvey, who envisioned building Liberia into a strong black nation and inspired both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. But protesters were not interested in what Davis had to say regarding his paper. "Since a member of the Yale faculty has been invited here, it seemed like an occasion for us to protest treatment of Yale TAs generally, and specifically to target his action against his TA," explained Penn first-year doctoral History student Brian Caton, who planned the protest. Fourth-year History graduate student Michael Kahan, who boycotted the speaker, said the Yale administration's conduct during the strike was "outrageous." "I hope to draw attention? to Davis as a representative of that behavior," he added. According to Caton, the protest reinforced an American Historical Association resolution which condemned the Yale administration and urged Yale officials to allow the TAs to unionize. "I hope to send a message to Davis and to the faculty and administration at Yale and here at Penn that graduate students have the right to organize," fourth-year History graduate student Mark Santow said. "It is important for freedom of expression and academic freedom not to be interfered with by professors or administrators." After he spoke to the small crowd, Davis said the protesters did not understand the "complex" issue. He claimed that Paton "hijacked" student grades by refusing to turn over the midterm results he needed to calculate final grades for the many seniors in his class who were applying to graduate school. He also said she showed the grades to the group of graduate students who wanted to unionize, violating Yale's rules and objectives, especially as they relate to confidentiality. "It is my course, not her course," he said. "Wholly apart from whether there should be a union, graduate students have no right to withhold grades from students and show them to outsiders who have no right to see them." A group of Penn undergraduates wrote a letter and attended the lecture in protest of the boycott. College senior Thor Halvorssen, who participated in the counterprotest, characterized the boycott as "amusing nostalgia for the '60s." But others who attended the lecture said they were there specifically to hear Davis speak. In her introductory remarks, History Department Chairperson Lynn Lees made reference to the boycott. "We have an independent group of graduate students here, and even if we don't agree with what they think, we respect their right to free speech," she said.

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