Students for Equity
Students for Equity was founded at Stanford University in 1975.
Rally/mock funeral
February 20 1975, some 300 students attended a noon rally in White Plaza and then marched in a mock funeral procession protesting what they called "the death of undergraduate education" at Stanford. The demonstration was called to emphasize the impact on undergraduates of tenure cutbacks, innovative program and financial aid cuts and increased tuition, according to ASSU Sen. Debbi Silton.
Asst. Anthropology Prof. Michelle Rosaldo, a SWOPSI Policy Board member, said students should continue to voice their concerns for projects like SCIRE and SWOPSI because "someone wants to turn this place into a place more like a corporation than a school." Political Science Prof. Charles Drekmeier said the University faced "increased dependence on outside funding" which threatens its independence and, "most importantly," projects like SWOPSI and SCIRE. Ricardo Reyna, a junior representing a group called Students for Equity, noted his group supported the demonstration. Students for Equity, according to Reyna, is an "umbrella organization for all minorities" organized to oppose the Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid (C-UAFA) proposal to the Faculty Senate . "The University is trying to create a homogenized student population and destroy dissidents," Reyna charged.
Michael Kieschnick, one of the student organizers of the rally, concluded, saying, "We should be angry with people like Dean [of Undergraduate Studies James] Gibbs, President [Richard) Lyman and Provost [William F.j Miller, but we should remember that they were carefully trained for the roles they're playing."Kieschnick received the loudest applause of the day when he concluded his speech by calling on the students to "work to have Dean Gibbs fired." [1]
Pushing minority agenda
March 1975, ten members of Students for Equity, a recently formed group to combat what it calls discrimination, met with President Richard Lyman and three other high-ranking University officials to discanr Stanford's commitment to minority students. The discussion focused principally on the Committee of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid (C-UAFA) proposal, as amended by the Faculty Senate, which greatly increases the self-help requirement for minority students. The meeting was scheduled in response to a demand by Students for Equity for a discussion on the issue, following a demonstration and march to Lyman's office last week to protest the new policy. Director of Financial Aid Robert Huff described the meeting as an "exchange of points of view." He said the students stated their opinions and Lyman and the other administrators responded. He noted that the atmosphere was "good."
According to Loren Bloch of Students for Equity, the discussion was about minority commitment by the University in general, but the focus was on the financial aid policy change, especially on its effects. The group also discussed budget priorities and the Ethnic Minority Task Force, which had been investigating minority financial aid, he added. Bloch said that the atmosphere was not that of a "tea party" but "not hostile either." He noted the obviously different points of view, but added that "both sides respected each others views." The policy change, as amended and approved by the Faculty Senate at its last meeting, requires that blacks, chicanos and Native Americans provide approximately 80 percent of the self-help expectation of non-minority students.
Self-help is money provided either by a job during the academic year or a long-term, low-interest loan, as opposed to a grant. Currently, no minority studnets on financial aid are required to provide any self-help during their freshman year. The policy change shifts most of the basis for financial aid from an ethnic criterion to an economic criterion, with the 20 percent advantage for minority students considered an inducement similar to the reduced self-help expectation currently extended to other students the University wishes to attract Huff and CUAFA Chairman Paul Green, a biology professor, said that C-UAFA is working on its final proposal.
In a letter sent to Students for Equity's Charles Ogletree last week which was released Monday, Lyman said that "on balance" he supported the new financial aid policy, and that he believed the C-UAFA "provided adequate opportunity for comment." The Ethnic Task Force, however, in an earlier published report said that further investigation is warranted in order to fully assess the myriad of ramifications such a change would initiate." Lyman's letter was written in response to a letter from Ogletree on behalf of Students for Equity. Ogletree's letter requested the meeting held yesterday, a written commitment of the University's "affirmative action practices toward minority students" and that Asian Americans be treated similar to the other minorities.
The 10 student members are an "ad hoc central committee" of the recently formed Students for Equity, according to Bloch.[2]