SG sample pamphlet

THE SOCIETY FOR CULTURAL UNITY

Sample Pamphlet Tracing the Dots from the Past to the Present

Sponsored by the Division for Diversity and Community Engagement (DDCE)

This is a sample pamphlet of photographic and textual archives, all from the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the Austin Public Library, and the John L. Warfield Center for African and African-American Diaspora Studies. They document the hard-fought struggle to eliminate prejudice at the University of Texas at Austin since the 19th century. With these archives, the Society for Cultural Unity aims to help UT students better understand their actions in the context of issues that have not gone away for hundreds of years now. Racism and sexism are more than just words, they are actions. By seeing and understanding the parallel between past prejudiced actions and those in the 21st century, students will no longer have the excuse of ignorance. This pamphlet also includes a simplified guide to reporting witnessed or experienced racial/sexual violence so that the university can better comply with its obligations under the Title IX and Clery Acts.

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Shortly before punitive measures were set to be handed down from the

university to Phi Gamma Delta for its violent display of racism at that year’s

Round-Up parade, racist signs bearing messages such as “No Blacks Allowed”

were found in the Phi Gamma Delta’s front lawn for the public to witness. The

“Fijis” fraternity claimed no responsibility and blamed pranksters for the signs.

To the right is the women’s Eliza Lee dorm and on the left is the men’s Cliff

Courts dorm, both built specifically for Black UT students. The dorms were

strategically located far enough from campus so that Black students would be

discouraged or even unable to attend their classes on campus. More than 50

years later, Black and Hispanic students live distantly from UT in the east

Austin riverside area and further, still struggling to connect with the school as

exorbitant on-campus and West Campus rent prices and disappearing

transportation options bar many of them from being able to live anywhere near

the UT campus.

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Here, UT students perform in blackface during

one of the school’s annual Texas-Round up

parades. Texas Round Up stopped being

sponsored by the Texas Exes in the early 1990s

after a sledgehammered car riddled with violent

racial epithets was driven through the parade by

the Delta Tau Delta fraternity.

Phi Gamma Delta also known as the

“Fijis” host a blackface party for

Halloween where avid students do their

best impersonations of rap and hip-hop

artists. The students continue a tradition

begun by Longhorns before them where

students would dress up in blackface and

brownface to play cowboys, runaway

slaves, and Native Americans. The

cowboys would “Round-Up” the slaves

and runaway Native Americans for fun.

This has inspired more recent imitations

such as when the Delta Delta Delta,

Alpha Tau Omega, and Zeta Tau Alpha

greek organizations hosted a Mexican

themed party where students

impersonated border patrol agents and

“illegals”. These events further called

into question the effectiveness of cultural

diversity flags recently implemented by

the university.

The clear linear connection

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The national attention brought to campus by the Young Conservatives of Texas’ “Catch an Illegal

Immigrant” game led activists and celebrities such as America Ferrera to join the protests against the

YCT’s actions. Ferrera and the hundreds of UT students who protested alongside her also brought

attention to the legal issue of national immigration reform.

On November 19, 2013, the UT Austin Young Conservatives of Texas planned to host a

“Catch the Illegal Immigrant” game where students would be given cash and other prizes

for “capturing” mock illegal immigrants throughout campus, and bringing them back to

the YCT “Deportation table”. In response, hundreds of UT Austin students united in

solidarity and protested the event and what it meant. They also marched to bring attention

to issues faced by undocumented students attending UT Austin, and legislation that

protects immigrant families from unfair treatment by the legal system.

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The call for a curriculum which effectively

educates UT students on the importance of

multiculturalism and diversity can be

traced back the 1950s when Black students

were first allowed to enroll at UT. The

Black Student Alliance 1st approached the

UT administration with its Proposed

Reforms to Institute Diversity in Education

(PRIDE) a few days after overt acts of

racism by multiple UT fraternities in April

of 1990. BSA’s endeavor precipitated from

earlier violent attacks against Black UT

students; such as when former BSA

president Randy Bowman was beaten,

kidnapped, and hung from a 8th floor

Jester window.

Despite multiple displays of

gendered violence and hate crimes

among the UT student population,

the call for courses which would

educate all Longhorns on the value

and importance of women and

minority cultures is rejected by

unpersuaded faculty.

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This picture from the 1960s shows members from the Delta Sigma

Phi fraternity dressed in blackface as a mock Zulu tribe on their way

to the once annual Texas Round-Up parade. The Zulu are a Bantu

ethnic group of Southern Africa and the largest ethnic group in

South Africa. They would have been suffering under Apartheid

(Mandated racial segregation by South Africa’s National Party

government) at the time of this photo. This image is just one of

many instances of cultural appropriation expressed by students

throughout UT’s history. Unlike today, however, society generally

approved of the young men’s acts. This can be observed by the

cheers and smiles Austinites had on their faces as the boys marched

through their neighborhood to the parade.

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This image shows UT students from the League of United Latin

American Citizens at the front steps of the Lincoln Memorial during

their “2015 Emerge Latino Conference” in Washington D.C. They

were protesting the acts of cultural appropriation and

marginalization committed at a "Border Patrol" themed party hosted

by the UT Austin Fiji Fraternity earlier that year.

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Nostalgia for the Confederate South goes back quite far in UT

Austin’s history. Here, a cadre of students, dressed in Confederate

soldier uniforms with a confederate flag, marches through the crowd

at UT Austin’s once annual Texas Round-Up Parade. The Texas

Round-Up parade descended from a tradition of blackface and

brownface where students would dress up as runaway slaves, Native

Americans, and Mexicans as they were “Rounded-Up” by other

students dressed as cowboys. The students here are shown marching

through the same spot where Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and

Transgender students were targeted only a few years later when they

chose to make their first organizational parade float.

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UT students unite in solidarity against the plaintiff in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. Plaintiff

Abigail Fisher filed a lawsuit against the university claiming that its policies aimed at improving

minority recruitment were violations of her constitutional rights to equal protection under the law.

Ultimately, the 5th

Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of UT’s holistic application

review which continues to consider race as a factor in the admissions process. Still, the UT Austin

Black student population has fallen from 4.3% to 3.8% over the past few years.

Title IX and Clery Act Compliance: If you or any individual witnesses or would like to report a

sexual, racial, or hate crime, you have the option of contacting the UT Austin Police Department at

(512) 471-4441 or you can go to the UTPD station located at 2201 Robert Dedman Drive. You can

alternatively contact the school’s Title IX coordinators Dr. Jennifer R. Hammat and Ms. Christa F.

López who are also responsible for investigating such assaults at either (512) 232-7055 or (512) 471-

5017. Title IX and other federal legislation such as the Clery Act are laws under which the university

is required to ensure fair and circumspect dispute resolution concerning assaults which take place on

or near the campus. If you would like to maintain anonymity and confidentiality when reporting an

assault, you also have the option of contacting the Counseling and Mental Health Center at (512) 471-

3515 or visiting them at the Student Services Building on the fifth floor. Voices Against Violence

(VAV) provides students with information about safety, legal, housing, academic, and medical

options in the event of an assault. It also offers individual and group counseling services for survivors

of sexual assault, relationship violence, and stalking, along with a 24-hour telephone counseling

service at (512) 471-CALL (471-2255). If you experience or witness any sexual or racial assault,

YOU HAVE THE POWER to stand up, use your voice, and help fight back.

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June 1897: Texas House Resolution to investigate faculty is passed in response to

allegations that their teachings were anti-confederate and subversive of the sharecropping

and tenet-farming system heavily in use in the south during that time.

May 16, 1946: Heman Sweatt files a lawsuit against UT President T.S. Painter on

grounds that the UT Law School violated his guaranteed right to equal protection under

the 14th

Amendment.

March 10, 1947: Texas Southern University’s law school for Blacks is established by the

Texas Legislature, allowing the state to keep in compliance with the “Separate but Equal”

standard established by the “Plessey v. Ferguson” ruling in 1896. Texans in power were

willing to endure any cost to ensure that Texas schools were not integrated.

June 5, 1950: Supreme Court rules that Texas Southern University is indeed unequal to

UT Austin’s law school. This landmark case was a prelude to the 1954 “Brown v. Board”

decision where “Separate but Equal” was finally considered inherently unconstitutional.

Fall 1956: The 1st Black undergraduates are admitted to UT Austin. Among these

students is Barbara Smith Conrad.

Spring 1957: Barbara Smith Conrad is removed from the lead role in the University-

sponsored opera “Dido and Aeneas” because she is Black. The controversy had risen up

to the Texas legislature which eventually advised UT President Logan Wilson to remove

Conrad from the play altogether.

March 11, 1960: The 1st civil rights protest is conducted by UT students. The students

were protesting the university’s refusal to integrate dorms and university social activities.

April 1960: Students from both UT and Huston–Tillotson University begin picketing

segregated businesses on the Drag (Guadalupe St.) and sit-in at businesses in Downtown

Austin also guilty of enforcing segregation.

December 4, 1960: The Travis County Grand Jury indicts UT students John Winborn and

William H. McKnight for their attempted mass murder of 25 members of the University

Religious Council Committee which was working to integrate 5 drag street restaurants.

The two students had even built their own homemade bomb.

May 1961: The activism spearheaded by Black students from UT and Huston-Tillotson

University spreads to the Student Assembly and faculty groups; a petition signed by 7000

individuals is sent to the Board of Regents to integrate student dorms and all university

activities, especially athletics.

Spring 1964: 1964 is the last year that UT Austin sponsors the performance of its once

annual Texas Cowboy Minstrel Show, where students danced and sang in blackface.

May 17, 1964: The hard-fought student activism begins to pay off and the UT Board of

Regents votes 6-1 to desegregate all campus dormitories. But as a caveat, then UT

President Norman Hackerman decreed that, in effect with the new ruling, no

considerations “either in favor of or against any person on account of his or her race,

creed, or color” would be given to any current or prospective students. This meant that all

efforts at minority recruitment would be banned by the university. Accordingly, UT’s

Black student population dropped significantly between 1965 and 1966. This ruling

would also violate a key provision of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 Civil Rights

Act which, under Title VI, declared that “previously discriminatory recipients must take

affirmative action to overcome the effect of prior discrimination” and would be passed a

month after Hackerman’s declaration.

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October 1969: Students and activists ban together for one of Austin’s largest marches

ever, attracting over 10,000 participants, to protest the Vietnam War. The participants

marched from the front of the Tower to the State Capitol and performed guerrilla theater

and speeches throughout.

March 1970: The Board of Regents passes a “Disruptive Activities” bill which banned

traditional modes of protest and speech such as sit-ins, pickets, strikes and anything else

that was “disruptive to administrative, educational, or other authorized activity”. The

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) files a lawsuit in retaliation. SDS along with

various other student orgs such as the Texas Coalition to End the War, the Graduate

Union of Political Scientists, and the Committee to End the War in Vietnam battled the

UT administration for the right to free speech throughout the late 60s and early 70s,

echoing the Free Speech Movement taking root at colleges and universities throughout

the nation.

Summer 1975: The UT Board of Regents finally changes the university’s 1964 non-

discrimination policy so that a person’s race, ethnicity, and creed are taken into account

for admission into the university.

Spring 1978: After a Latino student is elected president of the student assembly, the

Board of Regents moves to shut the student assembly down. A referendum was then held

by the predominantly white student body, and the students voted in agreement with the

regents.

Fall 1981: Pi Kappa Alpha, a historically white fraternity, holds a mock slave auction on

campus.

Fall 1982: The Student Government is reinstated by another school-wide vote.

Fall 1983: Students form the anti-apartheid Steve Biko Committee, and pressure the

university to divest all financial holdings within the South African nation, which it is

eventually successful in helping pressure the university to do.

Spring 1985: The Gay and Lesbian Student Association decides to build a float and join

in on the annual Texas Round-Up parade, an event primarily catering to students

interested in joining fraternities and sororities. As the GLSA float passes through the

crowd, however, they are bombarded with bottles and other trash.

February 20, 1986: BSA President Randy Bowman is attacked again, this time by two

white students wearing Ronald Regan masks. He is then hung outside of an 8th

floor

Jester Dormitory window.

May 1, 1985: Black Student Alliance President Randy Bowman is attacked and beaten in

a hate crime by two white students armed with pipes and glass bottle weapons.

March 1986: Members of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity host a “porter party” where

publicity for the party depicted Blacks in servile roles. Students ban together and march

to the party to protest, but are physically accosted by drunken Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity

members who hurl beer cans at the students, and then physically attack some of them.

However, Police end up arresting only one of the fraternity assailants. The fraternity later

promised to never again hold racist-themed parties.

Fall 1986: Women Inside Sexist Hell (WISH) is founded to address the issues of campus

sexual assault, sexism, gendered violence, and the lack of gender diversity in student

activist leadership.

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Fall 1987: Students begin a petition for a statue dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr. The

statue would help counter numerous pro-confederate monuments throughout the UT

campus and reaffirm the presence of the Black community on campus.

December 12, 1988: Phi Gamma Delta, also known as the “Fijis”, is criticized for using a

Black caricature as their mascot “Fiji Island Man”. The fraternity also used the Black

caricature as a national organization symbol.

January 1990: UT President William Cunning announces his support to erect a statue of

Martin Luther King Jr. after 3 years of protest and activism by UT Austin’s Black

community.

April 3, 1990: Toni Luckett is elected as the 1st African-American Student Government

President. She is also the 1st self-proclaimed lesbian to take the office

April 7, 1990: In keeping up with Delta Tau Delta, fellow fraternity Phi Gamma Delta

passes out T-shirts with a Sambo caricature superimposed onto the body of NBA player

Michael Jordan during a Texas Round-Up basketball tournament.

May 1, 1990: At the behest of student and outside group protests, UT suspends Delta Tau

Delta and Phi Gamma Delta for one year and requires them to do 1200 hours of service in

the African-American community.

April 4, 1991: A revised multicultural curriculum proposal is approved by the UT Faculty

Senate.

May 5, 1990: Hundreds of UT students march to the State Capitol to demand the

implementation of a multicultural curriculum at UT Austin.

November 14, 1991: The implementation of a multicultural curriculum is protested by

faculty throughout UT Austin and is stopped from going to the Board of Regents. These

faculty protesters objected to the idea of cultural awareness being “shoved down

students’ throats” and saw no need for such a “drastic measure”.

September 29, 1993: Cheryl Hopwood and Stephanie Haynes file “reverse

discrimination” lawsuit against UT Austin in U.S. District Court. Their lawsuit becomes

“Hopwood v. Texas”.

November 18, 1993: The Texas “Spooks” change their name to “Spirits” after longtime

protest from UT’s Black community. For years, the group had refused to see itself as

using an anti-Black racial epithet for a name.

Fall 1994: U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks rules that race can be used as a factor in

admission to UT Austin so that the university could maintain diversity and remedy past

and present discrimination faced by minorities.

February 10, 1995: In protest against racial profiling by the UT Police Department and

other issues of racial prejudice at the university, students band together and submit a

formal paper titled “The University Fosters a Hostile Learning Environment”. The paper

discussed various ways in which UT had been systematically “pushing out” the Black

student. Their examples included unaffordable housing, increasingly difficult access to

the UT campus, and unaffordable studying/event rooms in the Union building which

many Black students and organizations could not access.

April 1, 1996: Students rally against the Supreme Court’s “Hopwood v. Texas” decision

which ruled that the use of race as a factor in admissions to institutions of higher

education was unconstitutional and a violation of the 14th

Amendment.

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July 1, 1996: As a result of the Supreme Court’s decision in “Hopwood v. Texas”,

Affirmative Action is ended in institutions of higher education in Texas, Louisiana, and

Mississippi.

September 1997: While celebrating the “Hopwood v. Texas” decision as a “blessing”,

UT Law Professor Lino Graglia says that compared to their white counterparts, Black

and Hispanic students make inferior standardized test scores and come from cultures in

which “failure is not looked upon with disgrace”.

Spring 1998: UT implements the Top 10% policy in an attempt to address the dearth of

Black student enrollment.

September 1999: Racial epithets and the letters “KKK” are found on posters for Black

student events in the Malcolm X lounge.

January 18, 2003: UT student Kevin Curry is racially profiled by the UT Police

Department in the Texas Union after a UT police officer suspects something wrong with

Curry playing the piano there.

January 20, 2003: The MLK statue is egged by UT students mocking the annual

celebration of MLK day.

June 23, 2003: Supreme Court decides in “Grutter v. Bollinger” that special

consideration for applicants of a particular race is not a violation of the 14th

Amendment

as long as an arbitrary quota system is not being used.

Fall 2004: The Task Force on Curricular Reform, having considered the recommendation

of the Commission of 125, suggests a major overhaul of UT’s undergraduate course

requirements, recommending that students be required to take at least one cultural

diversity flagged class before graduation.

March 28, 2012: The Daily Texan runs a cartoon mocking Trayvon Martin after his

death at the hands of George Zimmermann.

November 19, 2013: The Young Conservatives of Texas cancel their “Catch an Illegal

Immigrant” game, where students would be encouraged to capture mock illegal

immigrants throughout the campus and “deport” them back to the YCT table where gift

cards and other prizes would be given to participating students.

November 20, 2013: Hundreds of UT Austin students gather at the Main Mall to show

solidarity against the would-be “Catch an Illegal Immigrant” game by the Young

Conservatives of Texas. They also unite to demonstrate the importance of issues facing

undocumented students attending UT Austin and legislation to protect immigrant families

from unjust deportation practices.

July 15, 2014: In the last round of the “Fisher v. UT” case, the 5th

Circuit Court of

Appeals upholds the constitutionality of UT’s holistic application review which continues

to consider race as a factor in the admissions process.

October 15, 2014: For the first time ever, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking

appear in UT Austin’s annual security report. This allows the school to better monitor

categories of sexual violence that decades old legislation over discrimination at colleges

had overlooked entirely. With the new monitoring standard, the university significantly

improved its ability to alert students and parents to rising or falling trends of sexual

assault at the UT Austin campus.

February 7, 2015: The UT Austin Fiji chapter hosts a “Border Patrol” themed party

where students culturally appropriate Mexican cultural staples while wearing clothes that

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had words like “Jefe” and “Pablo” scribbled on them. When approached about the event,

the Fiji chapter responded that their party was only “western themed”.

February 12, 2015: UT Students unite in solidarity and march to the Fiji fraternity house

to demand a public apology and administrative action on the issue. They respond to the

fraternity’s claim that the culturally insensitive event was only “western themed” by

pointing to past and similar events marked by cultural appropriation and insensitivity.

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