SLATE
Encyclopedia
SLATE, a pioneer organization of the New Left
and precursor of the Free Speech Movement
, was a campus political party at the University of California, Berkeley
from 1958 to 1966.
during the loyalty oath
controversy of the 1950s. The first stirrings of the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1950s prompted a challenge by Ralph Shaffer, graduate student representative on the Associated Students of the University of California board, to discriminatory practices of fraternities and sororities. In 1957 a campus political party called Toward An Active Student Community (TASC) was organized by Fritjof Thygeson, Rick White and others. It ran candidates in the student government election. Its requirement that candidates be accountable to TASC, based on the British parliamentary system, was fiercely attacked in the Daily Californian (UCB's student newspaper). TASC's candidates ran on a liberal platform, and were substantially defeated. The next semester, Mike Miller, an undergraduate representative on the Associated Students Board, resigned and organized a slate of candidates to run on a platform supporting racial equality, free speech on campus, voluntary ROTC (participation in ROTC was mandatory at the time for freshman and sophomore men), and participation in the National Student Association
. They doubled the electorate and received between 35-40% of the vote. Encouraged, the candidates, joined by Thygeson, White, Peter Franck, Marv Sternberg, and Wilson Carey McWilliams
, formally established SLATE as a campus political party in February 1958 (the name was not an acronym, but simply stood for a slate of candidates who ran on a common platform). The university administration approved SLATE as a student organization, but not as a political party.
In the spring of 1959 the first and only SLATE student body president, David Armor, was elected, along with four other representatives, with strong support from graduate students. The university administration quickly responded by announcing that graduate students would no longer be considered members of the Associated Students and thus would be ineligible to vote in the student elections. SLATE continued to contest student elections, raising issues of free speech and academic freedom, as well as the right of students to take positions on such “off-campus” public issues as racial discrimination, capital punishment, civil liberties, war and peace, and farm worker organizing. Over the course of 1959 Berkeley Chancellor Clark Kerr
developed a set of directives governing the rights of student organizations to sponsor speakers and prohibiting taking stands on “off-campus” issues. SLATE led the opposition to the Kerr Directives.
SLATE took positions on a number of controversial public issues that emerged in its first years. It supported a Berkeley fair housing ordinance in 1959, opposed the hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC) in San Francisco in May 1960, supported the national Woolworth-Kress boycott called by civil rights organizations, opposed the execution of Caryl Chessman
at San Quentin, and opposed continued nuclear weapon testing. SLATE also continued its advocacy for on-campus issues, including an end to compulsory ROTC, elimination of the Communist speaker ban, academic freedom
, the rights of student organizations, and an idealistic critique of Kerr’s instrumental vision of the modern University. Articulating these positions were Ken Cloke and Michael Tigar
, two SLATE representatives elected to the Associated Students board in the early 1960s.
SLATE served as an umbrella group for students whose politics ranged from Young Democrats to Trotskyist, and never became the exclusive possession of any one political sect or grouping. As Mike Miller put it, SLATE followed a politics of the “lowest significant common denominator,” in maintaining a multi-issue student organization committed to democracy, human rights, and peace. As word of students protests at Berkeley spread, campus political parties were organized at a number of American universities, including San Francisco State, Michigan, Iowa, UCLA, Riverside, Chicago, and Illinois.
Beginning in 1960 and continuing for four years, SLATE sponsored a series of summer conferences. The 1962 SLATE summer conference, “The Negro in America,” featured Charles McDew, chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and led to the formation of Bay Area Friends of SNCC. The 1963 SLATE summer conference, “Education in the Multiversity,” criticized Clark Kerr’s vision of the university, the role of universities in the Cold War
, and argued for an expanded concept of student rights and academic freedom in university reform. As one of its educational reform projects, in fall 1963 SLATE began publishing The SLATE Supplement to the General Catalog,http://archive.slatearchives.org/gs/HASH331a.dir/doc.xml evaluating campus departments, courses and instructors.
, or were otherwise involved with civil rights protests in the Bay Area. The Free Speech Movement
that emerged from the University’s attempt to arrest and expel students who led the protests was even broader than SLATE’s coalition, as the FSM included Young Republicans
and supporters of Barry Goldwater
for President in the 1964 election. SLATE members were active in the FSM, but in general were not the leaders. SLATE won five positions on the Associated Students in the fall 1964 election, but failed to take over the student government when it only elected two representatives in Spring 1965, and lost the campaign for student body president as well. SLATE then attempted to draft a new student government constitution, but the proposed document was voted down in a referendum in April 1966. With many students feeling that student government was a hopeless arena for change, SLATE voted to dissolve itself in October 1966.
served on the Los Angeles school board and city council (and would later serve in the California Assembly from 2002 to 2006), and Bill Lockyer
was then in the midst of his 25 years in California State Legislature, and would go on to serve as Attorney General of California (from 1999 to 2006) and state Treasurer (2007 to date). A second SLATE reunion was held in 2000 at a retreat center, and a third half-day reunion was held in conjunction with the 40th anniversary reunion of the FSM in 2004.
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
and precursor of the Free Speech Movement
Free Speech Movement
The Free Speech Movement was a student protest which took place during the 1964–1965 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and...
, was a campus political party at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
from 1958 to 1966.
Origins
The University of California, Berkeley, had a substantial tradition of student political activism ranging from peace agitation in the 1930s to resisting McCarthyismMcCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
during the loyalty oath
Loyalty oath
A loyalty oath is an oath of loyalty to an organization, institution, or state of which an individual is a member.In this context, a loyalty oath is distinct from pledge or oath of allegiance...
controversy of the 1950s. The first stirrings of the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1950s prompted a challenge by Ralph Shaffer, graduate student representative on the Associated Students of the University of California board, to discriminatory practices of fraternities and sororities. In 1957 a campus political party called Toward An Active Student Community (TASC) was organized by Fritjof Thygeson, Rick White and others. It ran candidates in the student government election. Its requirement that candidates be accountable to TASC, based on the British parliamentary system, was fiercely attacked in the Daily Californian (UCB's student newspaper). TASC's candidates ran on a liberal platform, and were substantially defeated. The next semester, Mike Miller, an undergraduate representative on the Associated Students Board, resigned and organized a slate of candidates to run on a platform supporting racial equality, free speech on campus, voluntary ROTC (participation in ROTC was mandatory at the time for freshman and sophomore men), and participation in the National Student Association
National Student Association
The United States National Student Association, a confederation of American college and university student governments, was founded in 1947 at a conference at the University of Wisconsin. It established its first headquarters in Madison, not far from the U. of Wisconsin campus...
. They doubled the electorate and received between 35-40% of the vote. Encouraged, the candidates, joined by Thygeson, White, Peter Franck, Marv Sternberg, and Wilson Carey McWilliams
Wilson Carey McWilliams
Wilson Carey McWilliams , aka Carey McWilliams, Jr., son of Carey McWilliams, was a political scientist with a storied career at Rutgers University. He served in the 11th Airborne Division of the United States Army from 1955–1961, after which he took his Masters and Ph.D. degrees at the University...
, formally established SLATE as a campus political party in February 1958 (the name was not an acronym, but simply stood for a slate of candidates who ran on a common platform). The university administration approved SLATE as a student organization, but not as a political party.
In the spring of 1959 the first and only SLATE student body president, David Armor, was elected, along with four other representatives, with strong support from graduate students. The university administration quickly responded by announcing that graduate students would no longer be considered members of the Associated Students and thus would be ineligible to vote in the student elections. SLATE continued to contest student elections, raising issues of free speech and academic freedom, as well as the right of students to take positions on such “off-campus” public issues as racial discrimination, capital punishment, civil liberties, war and peace, and farm worker organizing. Over the course of 1959 Berkeley Chancellor Clark Kerr
Clark Kerr
Clark Kerr was an American professor of economics and academic administrator. He was the first chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley and twelfth president of the University of California.- Early years :...
developed a set of directives governing the rights of student organizations to sponsor speakers and prohibiting taking stands on “off-campus” issues. SLATE led the opposition to the Kerr Directives.
SLATE took positions on a number of controversial public issues that emerged in its first years. It supported a Berkeley fair housing ordinance in 1959, opposed the hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
(HUAC) in San Francisco in May 1960, supported the national Woolworth-Kress boycott called by civil rights organizations, opposed the execution of Caryl Chessman
Caryl Chessman
Caryl Whittier Chessman was a convicted robber and rapist who gained fame as a death row inmate in California. Chessman's case attracted worldwide attention, and as a result he became a cause célèbre for the movement to ban capital punishment.-Crime and conviction:Born in St...
at San Quentin, and opposed continued nuclear weapon testing. SLATE also continued its advocacy for on-campus issues, including an end to compulsory ROTC, elimination of the Communist speaker ban, academic freedom
Academic freedom
Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.Academic freedom is a...
, the rights of student organizations, and an idealistic critique of Kerr’s instrumental vision of the modern University. Articulating these positions were Ken Cloke and Michael Tigar
Michael Tigar
Michael E. Tigar is an American criminal defense attorney known for representing controversial clients. He is also a member of the Duke Law School faculty.-Early life and education:...
, two SLATE representatives elected to the Associated Students board in the early 1960s.
SLATE served as an umbrella group for students whose politics ranged from Young Democrats to Trotskyist, and never became the exclusive possession of any one political sect or grouping. As Mike Miller put it, SLATE followed a politics of the “lowest significant common denominator,” in maintaining a multi-issue student organization committed to democracy, human rights, and peace. As word of students protests at Berkeley spread, campus political parties were organized at a number of American universities, including San Francisco State, Michigan, Iowa, UCLA, Riverside, Chicago, and Illinois.
Banned from campus
Public reaction to UC students participating in the demonstrations against HUAC, pickets against discrimination, and vigils against capital punishment was putting pressure on UC Regents and administrators. As SLATE continued to insist on the right to take stands on “off-campus issues,” the university administration responded by banning SLATE from the campus (the ban was later reversed).Beginning in 1960 and continuing for four years, SLATE sponsored a series of summer conferences. The 1962 SLATE summer conference, “The Negro in America,” featured Charles McDew, chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and led to the formation of Bay Area Friends of SNCC. The 1963 SLATE summer conference, “Education in the Multiversity,” criticized Clark Kerr’s vision of the university, the role of universities in the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, and argued for an expanded concept of student rights and academic freedom in university reform. As one of its educational reform projects, in fall 1963 SLATE began publishing The SLATE Supplement to the General Catalog,http://archive.slatearchives.org/gs/HASH331a.dir/doc.xml evaluating campus departments, courses and instructors.
Impact of the FSM
In fall 1964, the issue SLATE had promoted since its founding, the right of student groups to give support to off-campus causes, came to a head over the right of students to place tables at the entrance of the campus to solicit members and contributions for a variety of issues. Leading the defense of these rights were a number of students who had been to Mississippi for Freedom SummerFreedom Summer
Freedom Summer was a campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible in Mississippi which had historically excluded most blacks from voting...
, or were otherwise involved with civil rights protests in the Bay Area. The Free Speech Movement
Free Speech Movement
The Free Speech Movement was a student protest which took place during the 1964–1965 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and...
that emerged from the University’s attempt to arrest and expel students who led the protests was even broader than SLATE’s coalition, as the FSM included Young Republicans
Young Republicans
The Young Republicans is an organization for members of the Republican Party of the United States between the ages of 18 and 40. It has both a national organization and chapters in individual states....
and supporters of Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
for President in the 1964 election. SLATE members were active in the FSM, but in general were not the leaders. SLATE won five positions on the Associated Students in the fall 1964 election, but failed to take over the student government when it only elected two representatives in Spring 1965, and lost the campaign for student body president as well. SLATE then attempted to draft a new student government constitution, but the proposed document was voted down in a referendum in April 1966. With many students feeling that student government was a hopeless arena for change, SLATE voted to dissolve itself in October 1966.
Reunions
The first reunion, attended by some 150 former SLATE members (out of an estimated 850 one-time card-carrying, dues-paying members), was held at the Berkeley campus in June 1984 with considerable media attention. A survey revealed that most who attended were still active in left-of-center politics, although there were exceptions. David Armor, SLATE’s only student body president (who did not attend), had made an unsuccessful run for a Los Angeles Congressional district in 1982 as a Reagan Republican, and Rick White, who did attend, found his neoconservative views treated respectfully but not shared. In an emotional session, SLATE women recalled the sexism they had encountered from male leaders in the organization. Two former SLATE members in attendance had achieved success in California electoral politics: Jackie GoldbergJackie Goldberg
Jackie Goldberg is an American politician and teacher, and a member of the Democratic Party. She is a former member of the California State Assembly....
served on the Los Angeles school board and city council (and would later serve in the California Assembly from 2002 to 2006), and Bill Lockyer
Bill Lockyer
William Westwood "Bill" Lockyer is an American politician. He is the current 32nd State Treasurer of California, elected in 2006 and re-elected in 2010. He has also served as California Attorney General and President Pro Tempore of the California State Senate...
was then in the midst of his 25 years in California State Legislature, and would go on to serve as Attorney General of California (from 1999 to 2006) and state Treasurer (2007 to date). A second SLATE reunion was held in 2000 at a retreat center, and a third half-day reunion was held in conjunction with the 40th anniversary reunion of the FSM in 2004.