Campus Conflict: Students Given Lessons in Strategy

It’s one of the oldest games around on a college campus, the one between protesting students who want change and administrators who won’t rush headlong into anything.

As a onetime campus “militant,” I can tell you students take the game very seriously. We hated it when the administration pulled a fast one or outmaneuvered us.

I suspect that the administration, from the president on down, really doesn’t enjoy dealing with demanding students who think their cause is the most righteous in the universe. But I bet the top brass occasionally takes a measure of satisfaction when it outflanks the kids.

It shows them who’s really in charge.

The latest chapter in this struggle took place the other day at USC.

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The political climate at SC isn’t to be confused with that of hated rival UCLA--or UC Berkeley for that matter. But the revitalized interest by Latino students in social issues--sparked in part by the death last year of farm workers leader Cesar Chavez--has found its way to SC, where 14% of the 13,500 undergraduates are Latinos.

A student group, La Raza Political Action Committee, staged a noontime rally at the Tommy Trojan statue to press its demand, made back in October, that the administration rename a patch of grass on campus in honor of Chavez. The students think he is deserving of such a tribute.

The hitch is, that parcel is currently called E.F. Hutton and Company Park.

Also, the students want an outdoor Latino-themed mural. They ask that it be on a wall that overlooks the parcel.

SC’s vice president for student affairs, James Dennis, listened to the students, but what they asked for was too much. He countered with proposals that the kids reject.

Dennis says Hutton Park won’t be renamed. “It would be illegal and inappropriate,” he says, explaining that it’s unfair to donors to name buildings or parks after them only to remove their name later.

As a private institution, SC isn’t about to reject the generosity of well-heeled companies and individuals.

Instead, the school will honor Chavez with a plaque, but its location hasn’t been determined yet. Also, Dennis says a Latino-theme mural will be painted inside the Topping Student Center.

He added that SC’s responses are part of a series of initiatives it is undertaking to strengthen its ties to L.A.’s Latino community. Among other things, the school will offer a Chicano studies major this fall.

The initiatives have broad support, including from SC’s governing board of trustees. In a jab at La Raza, one influential Latino trustee, Dr. Edward Zapanta, is quoted in a school press release as supporting the school’s efforts.

Naturally, the Chicano students are upset. They scream foul, arguing that SC’s responses are inadequate, and accuse administrators of trying to take credit for things the kids proposed in the first place.

“It’s blatant tokenism,” says Daniel Ruiz, a freshman who is majoring in political science. “USC sits in the middle of one of the dynamic cities in the world where more than 40% of the population is Latino. It’s somewhat scared because the dynamics are changing (in Los Angeles) and it’s afraid of losing the funds from traditional corporate types.”

The students say they’re going to continue their fight for Chavez Park, an outdoor mural and a school-sanctioned boycott of table grapes. But they aren’t saying what they’ll do if they don’t get their way.

Dennis, who is leaving SC in July after 27 years to become a college president in the Midwest, says he doesn’t know how the controversy will be settled.

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As protest rallies go, SC’s last Thursday was sedate. It wasn’t as dramatic as the hunger strike last year at UCLA over demands for a Chicano studies department or the protests that have attracted thousands of marchers at UC Santa Barbara over that school’s refusal to hire Chicano scholar Rodolfo Acuna.

Some students were attracted by the rally’s music, while others rushed off to study for final exams. Two in the back of the crowd had signs that said, “Chavez was not a Trojan.”

The rally drew about 175 Chicano students and supporters. Several speakers blasted the administration for dissin’ Latino history and culture, sometimes using four-letter words to emphasize their arguments. One rap group raised a few eyebrows when its members bellowed, “We got the rage to pump a 12-gauge!”

But while the kids were raising hell, the game was being played out. Very quietly, a campus public relations man sought out reporters who came to the rally to give them press releases to promote the school’s Latino initiatives.

For the moment, SC’s administrators are winning the game.