Black Studies and the Budget Crisis 1980s
The relationship between the university and Black Studies remained uneasy and oftentimes perceived as hostile. One such example of this was the 1983-84 attempt to reduce the Black Studies department to a program.
The Omaha World-Herald published an article on July 28, 1983 titled “UNO Faculty Talking of Escaping Job Cuts by Severing N.U. Ties” which shared a preliminary list of eight academic programs or departments from which faculty might be cut. Black Studies was on that list, showing a $114,000 cut. While nothing was finalized, Julien Lafontant, chairman of the Department of Black Studies reacted strongly, saying “This is a university. What we need here is education. We need faculty members. We need programs.”[1]
In the following weeks, the Omaha World-Herald published an article sharing that faculty were “accepting” of cuts, but were also offering different options. One of those was from Lafontant which read “[Lafontant] and his three faculty members [will] be transferred to other departments and teach black studies only part of the time, and that black studies be demoted from department to program status.”[2] By September 1983 an agreement had been reached that kept the 8-10 departments and programs intact, though twenty-one jobs across campus had been cut.[3]
February 1984 saw a renewed attack from the Board of Regents on programs across the NU-system, including the Department of Black Studies. This time however, Black Studies was the only poised to be affected by cuts in the College of Arts and Sciences.[4] The department existed in a constant state of tension and the unknown; in April the department was safe from downgrading and cuts, but in June 1984 it was once again on the chopping block as UNO’s Chancellor Del Weber and administration asked the Board of Regents to approve the reduction of the department to program.[5]
In June 1984, the Omaha chapter of the NAACP became involved in a fight to save the department. In the eyes of the NAACP and the Omaha Black community, the dissolution of the department, faculty rehoused in disparate departments and colleges, and the loss of academic standing within the university, undermined the commitments made to the community.
NAACP Omaha Chapter President A.B. Buddy Hogan met with the Board of Regents to defend the department.
The entire situation was complicated by the fact that the chair of the Black Studies department, Julien Lafontant, and some members of the faculty endorsed the move from department to program in March. This was done not out of malice for the department but as Hogan states,
"[Lafontant's] perception that the Black Studies Department would be unable ‘to survive in an atmosphere of constant threat and pressure.'” [6]
Hogan also pointed out that the budgetary concerns that prompted the March department cuts were not concerns currently. He questioned the rationale for cutting a department when there is no budgetary need nor had an adequate reason been given for why the current proposal only cuts the Department of Black Studies.
Hogan’s written case presents 9 points as to why the Board of Regents should defeat the proposal from Chancellor Weber:
- The Black Studies Department is different from every other department in the UN system in at least one significant particular
- The Black Studies Department has made outstanding strides in its brief existence yet is compared with disciplines that have been the staple of the university ever since it was founded
- The Black Studies Department has been under constant assault from the administration and others have not received even a modicum of commitment form the administration and the regents
- The proposal to eliminate the department indeed came from the chair and members of the department this time, but only as a contrived defense against the continual onslaught directed at the department over the past 15 years
- The proposal amounts to a shell game that is unworthy of a quality institution of higher education
- UNO administrators have already implemented the proposal that is contained in the resolution that you are considering today
- Black Studies professionals as well as university administrators and regents know that a department is the highest level of commitment that a university can make to an academic discipline
- During a recent accreditation visit to UNO, members of the accreditation team were assured that the university would make a commitment to the Black Studies Department “for a very long time”
- Institutional racism exists in the UN system as it does in every other major institution in this county and is evidenced, among other things, by the continual onslaught against Black Studies and the refusal to make a commitment to affirmative action in employment. This same atmosphere of assault on the the [sic] precious few advances made in the struggle for decent treatment of minority and female citizens in this country and a retreat into the “glorious good old days” of the past are the touchstones of reactionaries at the national level who are labeled for us as our leaders
The defense by the NAACP, Omaha Black community, and groups on campus were successful as reported by the Omaha World-Herald the “Black Studies department lives to see another day.”[7] Hogan’s full testimony runs 150 pages and is accessible on our Digital Collections page.