ECU Adopts Tough Stance
Article regarding student unrest in 1969.Citation for article:
"ECU Adopts Tough Stance," Charlotte Observer,, April 1, 1969.
Greenville -- Black students walked out of a convocation Monday as Dr. Leo Jenkins said East Carolina University would not honor their demands that "change be instituted by executive decree."Jenkins was interrupted three times as he told students "force will be met with force, and lawlessness shall be prosecuted to the full extent of the law." After interrupting Jenkins with chants, the group of about 50 black students finally walked out. Jenkins is president of the state supported school of 10,000 students.
Several hours later, the Negroes staged demonstrations near the entrances of two administration buildings. They left each building peaceably on the orders of campus police.
Jenkins had called the convocation to deliver his tough stand toward student protests.
Demands by the black students "must be handled by the established machinery of this university," Jenkins told the student-faculty convocation.
At the same time, Jenkins disclosed that one of two professors accused by Negro students of racial discrimination has left the faculty and the other will leave at the end of the year.
He did not name the professors but said, "Two out of a faculty of 600 is not a bad record."
Jenkins said the administration has met several times with black students who presented a list of 10 demands on March 3. there are 90 black students at ECU.
The demands included increased pay for maintenance workers, more financial aid for black students, black instructors in all departments, a black studies program, recruitment of more black students and athletes, discontinuance of all negative racial practices such as the playing of "Dixie" at university functions and black speakers on campus.
"I would like to point out that of 67 petitioners, 45 receive financial aid ranging from $300 to $1,846 per year," Jenkins said. He said some of the demands dealt with matters outside the institutional control because "federal and state monies come to us with definitely prescribed stipulations which govern their use which we cannot violate." other requests were referred to the Student Government Association, Jenkins said.
He said, "This institution has no reluctance to employ black professors.
"But the black American PhD. Is in short supply and in great demand," Jenkins said. "As a matter of fact I asked the black students to assist us in seeking such people, and we are presently negotiating with two."
Jenkins said "the few individuals on this campus who have intimated that buildings might be burned "should hear clearly that lawlessness shall be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
Jenkins also called upon all students and faculty members to "reject emphatically the brazen, assumed leadership of outside, non-student agitators who seek to influence your actions for their selfish purposes."
He said in this period when professional agitators have joined small groups of students across the nation "it was inevitable that universities found themselves forced to resort to reliance on the police.
"This campus wil not become a rest-home for the indolent, a correctional institution for the undisciplined, a remedial institution for the untrained and . . . It will not become a sanctuary for the lawless," he said.
Jenkins said the school is not equipped "to enforce the peace -- our function is to educate.
"When reason fails and disorder results," he warned, "the regular agencies of the law enforcement are our only recourse."
