Activist Remnant Hits Shift in Campus Blacks : Less Idealistic Than 1960s and Students Face Toughened Admission, Graduation Standards

A knot of 100 students, concerned about the firing of black activist and part-time lecturer Akinsanya Kambon, tightened around the speakers’ platform at the campus of California State University, Long Beach.

At the podium, a 31-year-old graduate student declared that university officials had dismissed Kambon because “they want us to hate ourselves so we will emulate them.”

Another speaker, a middle-aged disciple of assassinated Black Muslim leader Malcolm X, hailed Kambon as an unbowed victim of white oppression.

And a 47-year-old black studies professor spoke of the university’s “ruthless” firing of Kambon, who was replaced Oct. 28 after missing three weeks of classes while on trial in Sacramento on charges of possessing cocaine for sale while armed.

Cheer but Drift Away

The fiery speeches earlier this month echoed the militant 1960s, but in the pragmatic 1980s the black students attending the mid-November rally cheered and then drifted away.

Speakers, sensing the lack of intensity, chastised the students. “There are some real good Negroes going to this school,” said the Malcolm X supporter.

“(Kambon) dedicates his life to fighting for us, but we’re too ignorant and afraid to fight for his human rights,” said Eric Burrell, an officer in the Black Students Union.

There was little that students could do about Kambon’s dismissal, several black students and professors said later. The art instructor’s case already had been decided by university administrators and a jury, and he will be sentenced on Monday.

But they also said that the rally was illustrative of a change that has occurred among black students at Cal State Long Beach. It is a change, they said, that goes beyond a general decline of activism among all college students in the 1980s.

Aspirations Changing

They point not only to changing student aspirations, but to a decreased student awareness of black history, declining black enrollment, stiffened academic requirements and a shift in emphasis in the university’s black studies department.

“You want to think that students aren’t apathetic, and they do have concern for someone other than themselves, but you have to look at their behavior,” said Clifton Marsh, a student at Cal State Long Beach in the late 1960s and now a black studies professor.

“A lot of students now, instead of being involved in the Black Students Union or community tutorial or breakfast programs, are in fraternities,” Marsh said. “And fraternities are more concerned with recreation than some kind of political activism or academics.”

More Career-Oriented

Black student leaders also said that they are generally less idealistic and more career-oriented than their counterparts appeared to be in the late 1960s.

With the exception of a handful of black studies professors, “all that our leaders tell us is ‘go to school, get a job and work for someone else for the rest of our lives,’ ” said Michele Readeux, 20. Readeux, who goes by the name Aminika, is president of the Black Students Union, an organization with about 50 active members.

“Maybe students are selfish, but they’re taught that. All our (role models) do is make money and move out of the black community.”

Michael Davis, a Black Students Union officer who goes by the name Tafuta, said many black students are aware of the movements of the 1960s.

“But we look to the ‘60s and see that not very many people really moved up to the top,” said Tafuta, 22. “Rallies and marches weren’t really the way, so we’re looking at other avenues of struggle. . . . “

For example, Tafuta said he admires Louis Farrakhan, who through his Nation of Islam espouses Black Muslim principles. Particularly attractive are Farrakhan’s lessons of self-pride and economic independence, he said.

He added, however, that black students today are “trying to assimilate so much they forget their heritage and their culture.”

Conservative Upswing

Black students also are caught in a conservative upswing that has led to a cap on financial aid for low-income students and the reestablishment of academic standards that existed before the mid-1960s, educators say.

One result has been a decline in black enrollment, which at the Long Beach campus peaked at about 2,422, or 7.6% of the student body, in 1981. By this fall, it had dropped to 1,845, 5.7% of the total, and the lowest percentage in more than a decade.

Strict admission standards approved earlier this month for the California State University system’s 19 campuses threaten to further reduce the numbers of black students, minority educators have argued.

The new admission standards, passed to stem the high dropout rate at state universities, require university-bound high school students to take 15 academic courses rather than the current 12. Only one in four Cal State students earns a degree within five years, and the dropout rate among minorities is twice as high.

Because of that, the Cal State system has become a revolving door with phantom opportunities for academically unprepared students, said Gene Asher, executive assistant to the president at Cal State Long Beach.

Not Doing Any Favors

“Currently, 60% of the blacks and 30% of the Hispanics enter the California State University system as special admits” who do not have to meet general admission standards, Asher said. “Of those, 7% of the blacks and 4% of the Hispanics end up earning degrees in five years. So if you think you’re doing anybody any favors in creating false expectations, you’re wrong.”

But the administrator who runs the Long Beach campus’ minority recruitment programs said the effects of the new requirements could be significant.

“If things continue the same as they are, (the new standards) will have a dramatic negative effect,” said Alan Nishio, assistant vice president for student services. “Unless greater emphasis is placed on earlier outreach (to high school students), there will be a continuing decline in enrollments of black and Latino students.”

It will be difficult for inner-city high schools, already experiencing a shortage of teachers, to provide the college-preparatory courses mandated for admission beginning in 1988, Nishio said. And a shortage of counselors also creates some doubt about how well students will be advised about classes necessary for college, he said.

Fear Elimination

Mary Hoover, black studies chairman until last summer, said: “No one is opposed to standards. We’d love to have black students take courses that are going to help them in college. But we don’t want a rule passed from the top, while nothing is done at the bottom. That will eliminate black students from college.”

New standards already in place, especially the writing proficiency exam required for graduation from Long Beach, have taken a sharp toll, Hoover said. The writing exam alone keeps 50% of all black students at Long Beach from graduating, she said. (About a third of all Long Beach students fail the writing test on the first try, university officials said.)

In addition, the recent dropping of four black studies courses as general education electives was part of a tightening of curriculum throughout the university, and the threatened removal of three more courses will make it more difficult for black students to get through their first two years, Hoover said. University officials pointed out, however, that students can still take 24 of their 51 general education semester units in black studies. The difference is that they have fewer classes from which to choose.

There also have been faculty changes in the university’s black studies department, which was formed in 1969 and now is one of the 10 largest in the nation, with about 50 courses.

Firebrands Replaced

Many of the firebrand instructors of the early years have been replaced with educators intent on transforming black studies into a respected, academically oriented department, university officials said. But dissenters within the black studies department said that it has assimilated too much and that administrators refuse to hire well-qualified but politically radical blacks.

“There is a consistent move toward hiring a non-controversial, status quo-oriented staff, and I think that’s a dangerous trend,” said Hoover, who was removed as black studies chairman last summer over the objections of the majority of the department’s faculty.

Amen Rahh, longtime black studies professor, called the move “the most unprofessional posture that could be employed. It was reminiscent of slavery. . . . We’re under attack by the white, right wing of the Cal State system.”

Skyne Uku-Wertimer, current black studies chairman, did not return telephone calls.

Academic Emphasis

Keith Polakoff, dean of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, said he could not comment on a personnel matter. But Polakoff, speaking in general, said the university is “primarily interested in building a black studies department that has a stronger academic emphasis to it.

“This is not the 1960s,” he said, “and the kind of consciousness-raising that was passed off as legitimate university work in the 1960s won’t fly now.

“Our students come here by and large already having gained a lot of the consciousness that had to be emphasized 20 years ago,” he said. “They’re beyond that now. They’re interested in receiving good solid academic training that will prepare them for a career.”