It was the eighth straight day of protests on the sprawling 48,000-student New Jersey campus – and the first to capture national attention. What began as a dispute over three words grew into a racial referendum on campus conditions for blacks and Hispanics. It culminated last Friday when the Board of Governors announced it would retain Lawrence as president without reservation or censure. As a carrot, the board urged the administration to draft a “blueprint on multicultural life.” But a blueprint is unlikely to smother the simmering frustration.
The dispute grew out of three words Lawrence used in a taped question-and-answer session with a faculty group in November – words Lawrence has attempted to eat at least four times since. “The average SATs for African-American is 750 ,” he said. “Do we set standards in the future so we don’t admit anybody? Or do we deal with a disadvantaged population that doesn’t have that genetic, hereditary background to have a higher average?” A transcript wasn’t prepared until late January; one professor apparently leaked it to The Star-Ledger of Newark. Lawrence was dumbfounded. The 56-year-old French-classics scholar said his words were “jumbled together” and “diametrically opposed to my own beliefs.” He apologized profusely. But Rep. Robert Torricelli, a former Rutgers board member, said that saying “sorry” is not enough. “Suggesting that someone is genetically inferior does not get erased by an apology,” Torricelli told Newsweek.
Whether the president’s comment was heartfelt or a monumental blooper, it struck the same raw nerve as Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s “The Bell Curve,” the science book that suggests blacks may be genetically less intelligent than whites. But Lawrence is famous for recruiting black kids. Since he arrived at Rutgers four years ago, academic scholarships for minorities have increased by 30 percent. Minority enrollment increased by 8 percent. Even some black faculty and alumni felt compelled to douse the flames. “I think there is an extreme reaction to something that had been played out of proportion, " said Paul Robeson Jr., the son of Rutgers’s most famous black alum.
Even so, many students don’t buy the gaffe explanation. “He has shown his true colors and he must pay for his remarks,” says Koya Howard, a leader of the United Student Coalition, the ad hoc group seeking Lawrence’s ouster. The students also asked for representation on the 11-member Board of Governors and the elimination of SAT scores as an admissions criteria. They want a reduction in the $4,500 tuition.
As always, campus politics was full of youthful passion and disappointment. Jacqueline Williams waited quietly while the board met to determine Lawrence’s fate. Surrounded by students, she wept after learning he would likely survive. “As a black woman I have been taken advantage of for far too long,” she said. If true, that’s a hard lesson. What counts now is how she takes advantage of her next three semesters.
