Hesburgh discusses diversity at Notre Dame
Mike Connelly
News Writer
When Father Theodore Hesburgh arrived on campus as a 17-year-old freshman in 1934, Notre Dame was a very different place.
The stadium was smaller, the Dome still housed dorm rooms and the library, which now bears his name, didn't even exist. But, according to the former University president, the most glaring absence on campus was not a building but a kind of person.
"There wasn't a single black student, a single black teacher or even a black workman," Hesburgh said to more than 150 students in the LaFortune Ballroom last night. "[Notre Dame] was white heaven. I decided right away that if I could, I would change that someday."
Sixty-six years later, Hesburgh has changed far more than just Notre Dame. Both the University and the United States are more diverse thanks to the his work.
As University president from 1952 to 1987, Hesburgh instituted plans to diversify the campus. Some of his programs have resulted in nearly $40 million in scholarship money per year for minorities.
Money is one of the most important tools for increasing diversity at Notre Dame, Hesburgh said.
"If you [were] going to get blacks to come to Notre Dame, it was going to take a lot of money because many black families could not afford a Notre Dame education," he said.
As a charter member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 1957 and chairman of the commission from 1969 to 1972, Hesburgh explored the discrimination that closed off educational, social and political opportunities from blacks.
"We really established what the United States was like in those days," he said of the commission's work. "We determined what a black could and could not do."
The commission investigated six areas that were the worst in regards to discrimination against blacks — voting, housing, education, employment, administration of justice and public accommodations.
Of these issues, voting was the most critical, according to Hesburgh. The commission found that in 13 former Confederate states, laws effectively prevented blacks from voting.
In Mississippi, the law stated that to vote, a person must be able to read a newspaper. When a black person came to register to vote, he was handed a Chinese newspaper and asked to read it. When he was unable to read it, he was not allowed to register.
In addition to exclusion from the political process, blacks were excluded from education.
"In 1964, if you were black, you couldn't go to any school that had a white student in it," Hesburgh said.
Finally, the commission found that blacks were not even allowed to use the most basic public services like hotels, restaurants, water fountains and public toilets.
The commission found that the exclusion of blacks from so much of society was decidedly un-American.
"How can you pursue happiness if you are barred from so many things?" Hesburgh asked.
The recommendations of the commission and the hard work of President Lyndon Johnson led to the Universal Civil Rights Act of 1964 that addressed all the issues the commission had studied.
The results of the law could be seen immediately, Hesburgh explained. On the day the act was passed, two black lawyers that worked for the committee walked into the best hotel in Jackson, Miss., and reserved two rooms. They then went to the best restaurant and reserved a table before watching "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in the best theater in town. All of these activities would have been impossible before the law.
"For the first time in 200 years, two black men had been able to do these things," Hesburgh said. "That was the majesty of the law. Southern states obeyed the act with grace and courtesy because it was the law and they respected the law."
Despite all the advances made in regards to civil rights on campus and throughout the country, Hesburgh still feels that there is work to be done and that people understand more work is needed.
"I am happy at least that no one is saying we are doing fine," he said. "The reports I read say we are not doing fine and we need to do better."
All News Stories for Tuesday, January 25, 2000
