Racial tensions eased after ten years

Race relations on college campuses can be volatile and unpredictable -- and Penn, it seems, has learned that lesson the hard way.

Throughout the 1990s, Penn experienced periods of great tension between majority and minority students, as well as periods of harmony -- or at least a cooling of tensions.

In early 1993, race relations at the University were placed in the national spotlight following the infamous Water Buffalo affair, when then-freshman Eden Jacobowitz was accused of using the term "water buffalo" as a racial epithet against a group of black sorority women who were making noise outside his High Rise East dorm room. Race relations became further strained on campus when, in a separate incident later that year, 14,000 copies of The Daily Pennsylvanian were stolen off the racks by self-described "members of the black community" who were offended by the conservative views of one of the newspaper's columnists.

While these events seem extreme, they stemmed directly from the environment that existed on campus -- the period leading up to the Water Buffalo affair was wrought with strains between racial groups and palpable tension between students of different races.

Then-University President Sheldon Hackney, now a history professor, attributes the increased racial divergence in the early 1990s to a 1988 speech on campus by black radical Louis Farrakhan, as well as to other events in the wider world.

"The tension between Jewish students and black students... goes back to the Farrakhan incident," Hackney said.

History professor Alan Kors, who served as a judicial advisor to Jacobowitz while he was being prosecuted by the University and vehemently defended his right to free speech, believes that the racial tension stemmed, in part, from the University's tendency to preach a message of segregation to students as soon as they arrived on campus.

"What was happening was [the University] was simultaneously telling blacks this is a wonderful place to be, and that it is a hotbed of racism," he said.

Thor Halvorssen, who was a College freshman in the spring of 1993 and now works with Kors at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, agrees, and dismissed Hackney's claim that students remembered an incident that went as far back as 1988. He also blamed the University for creating a divide between students of different races, which, he said, began with the use of freshman orientation, and pre-freshman minority orientation.

"What Penn did was not welcome us as students and individuals," he said. "From the very start there was a sense that you were not yet another Penn student, you were a Penn student who was -- insert blank here -- black, white, Asian, etc."

Kaplan Mobray, then-president of Penn's Black Student League and a 1994 graduate of Wharton and the College, felt that these programs, while perhaps contributing to racial segregation, were designed to give minority students the best environment in which to survive.

Orientation "was an opportunity to sort of get together with students who were like me, who shared some similar backgrounds and some who had different backgrounds," Mobray said. "It gave me a start most optimal to succeed."

Mobray attributes much of the tension on campus to the DP -- not just to its controversial columnists, but also to its lack of everyday minority coverage.

"The way that the DP portrayed minorities on campus and portrayed, for example, the DuBois College House as a fixture of separatism, as opposed to highlighting its positive aspects as a fixture of home, or as a fixture of pride for many students, contributed greatly to the tension," he said.

Whatever the cause, though, no one disputes that racial tensions were high.

"My sense was that students were being taught to filter everything through the prism of race, including everyday abrasions," Kors said.

•

In 1993, the University, according to Kors, was looking for a "trophy" student upon which to pin charges of racial harassment. Administrators had been unable to bring charges against controversial DP columnist Greg Pavlik -- who had been accused of racist views -- and were looking for another scapegoat in Jacobowitz, he said.

As Jacobowitz's case progressed, Pavlik continued to write, further incensing the black community.

When the Water Buffalo case and the stealing of the DP's press run garnered national attention, views held by many students about race relations erupted into public debate.

The incident only served to turn "latent feelings to active feelings," Hackney said. "It did not convert anybody from one side to the other."

Both Mobray and Kors believe national publicity brought the issue of race relations to the table.

"The media put the University on notice," Mobray said. "So what ended up happening as a result was that the University set up task forces, roundtables and town meetings to talk about race relations."

As one of the major orchestrators of the DP press run theft, Mobray believes he and others left a lasting mark on campus.

"We made, and these incidents made, the University put race relations as an item on the administrative agenda," he said. "It was no longer to be viewed as something that just had to go away."

•

Today, Kors said, the University has really depoliticized freshman orientation, and if nothing else, is afraid of appearing to be segregating.

"The University got burned by the incident, and Penn students have benefitted," Kors said. "Penn is now leery of doing anything that appears arbitrary."

Still, race has never ceased to be an issue on campus.

"Race matters," said current Black Student League President Yewande Fapohunda. "And it will matter for a very long time here. That fact is still very much present in everyday interaction."

According to Mobray, current Vice Provost for University Life Valarie Swain-Cade McCoullum was instrumental in putting the issue of race relations on the administration's agenda.

As for how race and racial epithets play out on campus, experience varies for each individual.

Fapohunda said that now, many racially insensitive comments arise from ignorance, not necessarily malice, and that what is offensive varies from individual to individual.

"More attention must be placed on addressing the issue of ignorance rather than refining the systems of recourse when people are offended," she said in an e-mail.

The University does have some programs in place to entice and retain minority students, including recruitment and tutoring programs. Lately though, Fapohunda said, these programs have been examined and decried by wealthy Political Action Committees intending to eliminate race-conscious programming across the country, at private and public universities alike.

"Programs set up... to facilitate retention were successful, they really were," Fapohunda said. But lately "these programs have come under fire and begun to be compromised."

"In my opinion, student interactions in 2003 are markedly more open and expressive precisely because all of Penn's diverse student voices are encouraged to speak and to be heard," McCoullum said.

According to Professor Tukufu Zuberi, director of the Africana Studies Program, the University isn't doing enough. The number of minority students on campus is so small, he says, that no continuation of programs will be successful.

In order to make significant steps, "the University must have more of a commitment to diversity, not a continuation of a commitment," he said.

Until then, he emphasized, the issue of race relations can hardly even be addressed.

There are "a very small number of African Americans on a campus that has not transformed the content of its curriculum to reflect the wider reality of human experience."

About This Series Ten years ago, the media descended upon Penn. Prompted by the University's handling of the theft of a Daily Pennsylvanian press run and a freshman's shout of "water buffalo," the national press accused the administration of political correctness run amuck. Now that the controversy has died down, the DP decided to take a look back at the incident, its key players and the issues it raised - such as free speech, campus judicial processes and the role of the media.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.