Letters to the Editor

On Brotherhood

While reading "What They Stood For" (March/April), I reflected back to my mid-'70s period at Stanford, when I was possibly the first African-American male student in the now defunct physical therapy master's program given through the Medical School.

Like Keni Washington, I was academically well-qualified yet still "other" in an environment with two Asian women and one Mexican-American man as the other minority classmates. The prevailing feeling I experienced during those two years was a sense that my actions, attitudes and achievement represented not just myself but my entire race. I believe this encapsulates the added pressure any individual experiences as the sole representative of his/her particular minority, whether it be racial, religious, sexual or otherwise. The pressure to respond and achieve is elevated in proportion to the degree the group you represent is despised, mistrusted, disrespected or feared. During my time at Stanford I felt the racial tension. Unfortunately, neither my classmates nor I made any effort to defuse it.

As the article indicates, racial barriers were broken down by the willingness of the white frat members who insisted Washington be included based solely on his intellectual and interpersonal qualifications. Anytime a group occupying a majority position risks "good" standing in the name of inclusion, the majority of us eventually profits from those actions.
Robert Spriggs, MA '76
Fairfield, California

I read with interest "What They Stood For." Two years earlier [than Sigma Chi], in the spring of 1963, Phi Sigma Kappa pledged our first African-American member. This did not cause any ripples on the national scene, but the process we went through was similar in its dynamics.

Phi Sigma Kappa was not a particularly prominent fraternity—we had no anthem such as "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi." In fact, we went local a few years later and eventually ceased to exist on the Stanford campus. In the early 1960s, we were already a diverse group: We had Jewish members, Asian members, a couple of gay guys (who knew and who cared?) and one Hispanic, who was actually a playboy from Mexico City. In the process of inviting Alex Lewis—an African-American from Hawaii—to join our fraternity, we encountered institutional bias.

Like most fraternities, we had a chapter adviser, an old Stanford Phi Sig—probably 50! His job was to counsel us on issues relative to the national organization.

In our deliberations over new members we did not use the formal "black ball" system. You could keep someone out, but not anonymously. We would all gather in the living room and each candidate's name would be brought up for discussion. If someone objected to this person, he would say why. Others who wanted the person in could try to persuade the objecting party. In the end, one "no" vote would keep the candidate out. Alex Lewis went through this process without opposition.

But wait! The old Phi Sig said the national fraternity would be troubled by this, and, at the very least, we should use the formal "black ball" system. Each member has a white ball and a black ball and drops one into a box to vote: white for yes, black for no. No one knows how anyone votes. One black ball and the candidate is rejected.

Thinking this process would simply confirm Alex's inclusion, we passed out the black and white marbles. To our amazement, there were two black balls in the box. Alex was out.

At this point, several of us argued that this had been textbook discrimination: We had treated an individual differently from everyone else solely because of the color of his skin. We said that we would leave the fraternity unless we considered Alex for a third time—out in the open, the same way we treated everyone else. If someone objected, so be it, but he would have to argue with those who wanted Alex in.

Discussion ensued. To his credit, one Phi Sig acknowledged he had put in a black ball. He had nothing against Alex, but he was from Dallas and felt it would be difficult to explain at home. He then retracted his "no" vote. The other "no" voter was a coward; he never stepped forward.

Thus, Alex Lewis joined our fraternity. Whatever the chapter adviser reported or did not report to the national organization, we heard nothing of it.

Congratulations to the Stanford members of Sigma Chi. If our national organization had objected to our pledging Alex Lewis, they would have encountered the wrath of the Stanford Phi Sigs in 1963.
Larry Pearson, '64
Santa Cruz, California

In 1951, 14 years before the Sigma Chi imbroglio, the Nu Deuteron Chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa pledged a non-Caucasian, William Hahn, now deceased. The national fraternal organization was slow to respond but did the next year, threatening suspension of the chapter. Willy graduated in 1953, and the fraternity happily re-registered with the university as the Phi Sig House, an independent organization. I was a proud member.
Jarrott T. Miller, '53
Healdsburg, California

In 1954, I was rush chairman at the Sigma Nu house at Stanford; we pledged a young Jewish man. We had no idea the national, headquartered in Lexington, Va., had any restrictions based on religion. I admit, having been born and brought up in Berkeley, I was not sensitive to certain social mores in other parts of the country.

We didn't hear anything from the national organization for a few months, and in that period, I was elected president of the house. So the national's brief letter came to me: a demand that we de-pledge the young man. At first I thought we should just ignore the command, it seemed so bizarre. And it wasn't as if the national, so far away, had ever been involved in our chapter's affairs before this. But the national didn't relent: Either de-pledge or be kicked out of the national organization. So I had to respond.

My thought was: They wouldn't dare. The Beta Chi chapter of Sigma Nu was founded in 1891. I couldn't imagine they would jettison a Stanford chapter over one pledge. Well, I was wrong. I wrote a courteous letter, not attacking their position but describing how this particular young man would be a credit to the house and to the organization—and closing with: We are not going to back down. We were promptly and unceremoniously ejected. That is how Sigma Nu at Stanford suddenly became an "independent," renamed Beta Chi.

The mid-'50s were a time very different from the mid-'60s, when the Sigma Chi confrontation with its national organization took place. In 1954 we were watching the McCarthy hearings on black-and-white TV; the Korean "police action" was the destination of draftees; the civil rights movement hadn't gained traction; "Free Speech" and antidiscrimination legislation were still 10 years in the future. So our little resistance movement attracted no press, no support.

The fraternity went through a very difficult period, nearly disappearing altogether. Beginning about 30 years ago, some of the '50s alumni began to have contact with the undergrad members, and support developed for being rechartered with the national. Appropriately, it was the classmates of our 1954 Jewish pledge who were the prime movers for bringing Sigma Nu back—Chuck Rudolph, Bob Robinson, Jay Rossi and, primarily, Joe Critchfield.
Peter Scott, '56
Berkeley, California

I was a member of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity, which was located next to Sigma Chi, from the fall of 1964 through the spring of 1967. In that time period, we had three black fraternity brothers who were considered and treated as equals. Their race was never an issue to our fraternity, on either a local or national basis. It was unfortunate that the Sigma Chi fraternity had a problem with an East Coast bias, and certainly the Vietnam War was divisive and had a major effect on all college students nationwide, regardless of race. I can only react with compassion to the tragedies that Ken Washington experienced, but it would be a mistake to assume that Stanford fraternities were prejudiced against blacks at that time.
Jim Roessler, '67
Mill Valley, California

I greatly enjoyed the fascinating story of Keni Washington by Mike Antonucci. It brought back memories of a somewhat similar situation I was involved in seven years earlier.

After graduating from Stanford, I entered Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. A few weeks later, I joined Phi Chi Medical Fraternity along with a group of like-minded independent types, including the only African-American student in a class of 104. Jim fit in quite well and everyone wanted him to be pledged, even though that would probably result in the chapter being suspended. That occurred soon after.

Freshman medical students are generally interested in the basics: making it through the tough freshman year, decent living conditions, good friendships, maybe a date or two. We couldn't have cared less about the attitude of the national fraternity leadership. Jim remained a good friend and fellow fraternity member through our four years and graduation in 1961. To my knowledge there were no traumatic events associated with his membership in the chapter. I am not aware when or if the local chapter and the national reunited.
George M. Burns, '57
Bend, Oregon

In your article you mentioned Alpha Tau Omega and Sigma Nu, noting that they "had already cut ties with their national organizations" in 1961. Actually ATO was thrown out of the national organization for pledging Jews. The ATO house became a local fraternity, Alpha Tau Omicron, which by 1965 had continued to pledge Jews and added four African-American brethren: Ira Hall, Haldane King, Albert Wilburn and Robert Zander. One critic of our behavior observed, "You guys really don't care if someone is a Negro, do you?" Indeed we did not. In contrast to the story about Sigma Chi, we were never offered re-entry to our national fraternity, an organization founded at Virginia Military Institute in 1865 and meant to be a white, Christian organization of brotherly love, etc. With our continuing disregard of its founding principles—pledging Jews; blacks; a Mexican-American, Joe Hernandez; a Mexican, Rudy Gonzalez; and a couple of guys from Texas, C.E. Long and Dexter Marble—we were viewed, at least from the bigot's perspective, as being totally out of control. I pledged in 1963 and was rush chairman in '65, so some of this was my fault. What is really disappointing to me now is that the poison of racism is still boiling rather close to the surface of American life. How many generations will it take before it is just a distant memory?
Stephen Baird, '66, MD '71
Solana Beach, California

Please accept this letter as a bit of a footnote to the March/April cover story. I take no exception to the article. I would simply add some facts to the history of Stanford fraternities in that era.

My classmate Arthur C. Harris Jr., '68, was an African-American freshman going through fraternity rush at Stanford in the spring of 1965. Harris and I were both born and raised in Los Angeles, and we regularly drove to and from Stanford together during school breaks.

Arthur and Gary Petersmeyer, '68, were both "three-year starters" for the Stanford basketball team. Arthur, Gary and I, along with 20-plus other freshmen, pledged Delta Tau Delta in the spring of 1965.

The Delt House at Stanford and the Delta Tau Delta national fraternity had faced and dealt with this same issue in 1962 with the pledging of Morrison Warren, '65. The oral tradition in 1965 was that George S. Reppas, '51, had led the effort for the Stanford Delts and that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom S. Clark, a Delt alumnus from Texas, had led the national board. Together these two saw that the offensive terms were deleted from the Delt national constitution. Tom Clark personally attended our formal initiation in the spring of 1966 at Stanford.

The Stanford Delts of that era have rarely been accused of being farsighted, sophisticated or genteel, then or now. There was humor, camaraderie and competition at the Delt House. These are what attracted good men, as I recall. We still share a bond of love and brotherhood. Fraternity life was a wonderful and enlightening addition to my experience at Stanford. Freedom of association is an important right and American tradition.
Donald E. Swartz, '68, MBA '70
Rancho Palos Verdes, California

Another example of a fraternity pledging a minority student occurred during the Rush of 1956 at Alpha Sigma Phi. There, a Japanese student was pledged without any repercussions. His whole family had been legally adopted by a white family just before the 1942 internment order, and their names were legally, permanently changed. So the name Theodore (Ted) T.N. Slocum,'59, did not stand out. When the pledge class photo was sent to the national organization, the students simply found someone else willing to be photographed over Ted's name!

Sadly, Ted passed away a couple of years ago.
Jan (Cook) Kahl, '59, MA '60
Reno, Nevada

I thought you might be interested in publishing an addendum to the story because of another historic connection Stanford has to ending racial discrimination in the Greek system—one which preceded the Sigma Chi standoff.

Bruce Hasenkamp, JD '63, was an undergraduate member of Sigma Phi Epsilon at Dartmouth College in 1959. Hasenkamp is credited by the national organization of SigEp as having led the campaign to remove discrimination based on race, creed or nationality from that fraternity's bylaws at its national convention in September 1959. At the time, SigEp was the third-largest national fraternity and the first to ban racial discrimination from its bylaws. Thanks to Hasenkamp's hard work, the change was passed by a landslide vote. It would mean a great deal to him for his alma mater to recognize his role in ending discrimination, too.

Keep publishing great articles like "What They Stood For."
Nathan Gamble, MBA '04
San Francisco, California

In 1967-68, I served as president of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. During that rush year, we selected several minorities for admission. This led to a furor with the fraternity's national office, culminating in a national meeting at the Huntington Sheraton hotel in Pasadena. It is hard to forget that event. It was in the ballroom and there were representatives from all of the local chapters, as well as the Grand Council, who sat on a raised dais, looking down at us. I stood in the center of the room at a microphone explaining our decision. We presented a proposal to amend the national charter to allow minority members. It did not go well. The national leader sat in a judge's chair looking down at us, interrupting, patronizing, deriding our decision and lecturing us on "Brotherhood." Most of the room heckled our presentation.

Following that meeting, we called a vote of our chapter members and alumni and decided overwhelmingly to withdraw from the national fraternity.

At the same time, our chapter alumni agreed to continue to support building our new house in the new cluster behind Vaden. We worked closely with the architects to design the house, and it was great. The alumni raised the required $500,000 to finance the house. Interesting times.

In the '60s, the house was active in civil rights—we invited Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panther leadership to have dinner at the house and then brought them to present their case to an SRO MemAud crowd.

I have recently been in an exchange with the fraternity's national office. Their national magazine touts their progress in admitting African-American members, but they have built a beautiful new national headquarters building and named it after that same national fraternity leader from the '60s, a person some of us remember in a less favorable light. Although it seems like a long time ago, there are still some stories to tell and work to do.
Grady Means, '68, MS '71
Half Moon Bay, California

I read your column ("A Civil Rights Moment," First Impressions, March/April) and would like to correct an error in your penultimate paragraph. In 1960, there were four Negroes, as we were known then, in the freshman class: two men and two women. Russ Lombard and I were the men; Kathy Davis was one of the women, but I do not recall the name of the other. There were three African-Americans in the classes ahead of us: Carolyn Jones, Janet Gabriel and a man whose name I don't remember. In 1961, Harry McCalla and Daniel Portlock transferred into Stanford, and more enrolled thereafter. After graduation in 1963, Carolyn Jones started the Stanford-to-Yale Law School road, and I followed her there in 1964. Ken Washington and the 1964 Sigma Chi members did a good thing. But please do not forget that some of us came along before.
Handsel B. Minyard, '64
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Çatalhöyük's Legacy?

Robert Strauss's wonderful piece on the dig at Çatalhöyük updated me in several ways. Thank you for printing it. Strauss writes, "Equally exciting—and puzzling—was that Çatal evidently had no cemeteries, no streets and no public gathering places. From generation to generation, people built windowless homes with only a single entryway in the ceiling." Your photos of that mazelike Neolithic city dig brought to mind an Iranian film from the 1930s (I believe), shown on TCM and titled I Can't Find My Friend's House.

I saw that film in early December 2013, and I wonder if Professor Hodder or his co-workers saw it. It was shot in an obviously ancient town that the narrator says was later destroyed by a devastating earthquake. In most of the film, a young boy desperately hunts through an unfamiliar town some distance from his home. He searches within the three-dimensional maze of the town on winding narrow staircases of mud construction squeezed between the walls of houses built one upon the other. In those staircases, a few windows in decorative wooden casements channel sunlight from above—explained by an old character in the film who has worked his entire life repairing those windows. Surely that town was a distant descendant of Çatal. Not having traveled in that part of the world, I wonder if more modern towns of that nature still exist.
Naida West
Rancho Murieta, California

In your March/April edition, your cover caught my eye with line "City Life, Circa 7500 B.C.E." Living way "up nort" in Northwestern Wisconsin, I wondered if my friends and co-workers, the so-called salt of the earth, knew what "B.C.E." meant. They didn't.

Now, understand that this letter is being written on the day we "sprung ahead" with our clocks, a human-created elbow to the guts of my Circadian rhythm. It brings out an ornery streak I can mostly repress.

Who decided "B.C." and "A.D." should be scrapped? When was the announcement of the change that we all apparently missed here in the hinterlands? Who voted on the change? Was the debate surrounding the change spirited? Did this change happen at the same conference where Smokey the Bear decided that "Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires" needed to be rebranded to "Only You Can Prevent Wildfires"? (Was this a thinly veiled retaliation to the joke about "the" being his middle name?)

When did Peking become Beijing, and why hasn't someone informed the ignoramus chefs still calling the dish "Peking duck"? When did Mao Tse-tung become Mao Zedong? Can people petition for a name change posthumously? Can three of 10 people agree on the proper spelling of the last name of the former leader of Libya? And how does the BBC get away with calling Myanmar "Burma," anyway?

Please don't get me started on the verbing of nouns. That will have to wait until whenever that glorious day arrives when we "fall back."
Jim Babbitt, '77
Chetek, Wisconsin

Jackpot

"What They Stood For," "What Happened Here?" "A Postdoc's Path" (March/April) plus Rodin's hands, Dean Fred, sea surges, "Geospatial Center Tracks Mass Shootings" (Farm Report, March/April) . . . Why can't all issues of Stanford be this good?
David Rearwin, PhD '73
La Jolla, California

A Unique Approach

Like so many, I was saddened to learn of Fred Hargadon's passing. I have many fond memories of shared moments with Dean Fred, and one in particular highlights his wit, his incredible memory and his love of all things written.

I worked at Stanford as an aquatics specialist for the department of athletics, physical education and recreation in the 1970s. On one brilliant Stanford afternoon in early June, Fred came to the (then) DeGuerre pools to watch the intramural swim meet and to chat. We climbed to the top of the stands so he could smoke his pipe.

He was chuckling because he had just completed a most satisfying exercise. With the current admissions season behind him, he had time for some leisure reading and had just finished some obscure, sequential essays by Mark Twain. What was most pleasing to him, however, was the fact that he recognized one of the Twain essays as one an applicant from two or three years earlier had plagiarized in her application. (Note: She had been denied admission.)

Being Dean Fred, however, he took it upon himself to write the applicant back paraphrasing the next Twain essay [in the series], thereby letting the young woman know that he now knew for sure what she had done. He was beside himself with delight, and we laughed long and hard at his discovery and his incredibly unique solution.

What an exceptional human being was Dean Fred Hargadon! Thank you, sir, for all you did for us and for all the lives you changed.
Jeffrey W. Hammett, '69, MA '70
Manila, Philippines

Appalling Schedule

I fully agree with President Hennessy about the value of student-athletes at Stanford ("In Praise of True Student-Athletes," March/April). On the other hand, since the advent of Pac-12 and the Pac-12 Network, I am appalled at the changes in scheduling of games: midweek football games and basketball games almost any night of the week. For example, the men's basketball team played the Washington schools on Wednesday and Saturday. Did they make two trips up there, with a lot of tiresome traveling, or did they make just one trip and miss lots of classes? It seems to me that the scheduling is for financial reasons (TV) with little regard for academics.
Ken Green, '56
Calistoga, California

Climate Pressure

It was good to see the work of Stanford scientists in the Natural Capital Project, an effort to reduce climate-change pain with the least environmental and monetary cost ("Shoring Up for Sea Surges," Farm Report, March/April). Such work will be valuable whether Stanford divests from fossil fuels or not. How inadequate such efforts will be depends on our actions now.

The divestment movement at Stanford elicited several letters to the editor ("Fuel for Debate," March/April). One argument was that Stanford should engage fossil fuel companies in constructive dialogue. That may be true, but it is certainly insufficient. Climate change dialogue has been going on for two and a half decades, and now global carbon emissions are 61 percent above their 1990 level and continue to grow over 3 percent annually. It's the market, not the verbiage, that moves industry.

Another argument echoed that of Harvard President Drew Faust, who declined to divest from fossil fuels because using the endowment "to exert economic pressure for social purposes can entail serious risks to the independence of the academic enterprise." The argument fails to recognize that current investment already exerts economic pressures with severe social consequences; that President Faust and Harvard, just like Stanford and its officers and citizenry, are and ought to be responsible for those consequences; and that achieving academic enterprise through degradation of the world is despicable.

A third argument worried about Stanford's fiscal health. The divestment movement is not asking that all divestment be accomplished tomorrow or this year, but over a period of five years. That should give fiscal managers time to find values. Indeed, in a period in which California has already codified a 33-percent-by-2020 Renewables Portfolio and such actions are becoming more likely in other governments at home and abroad, it may become financially wise to divest sooner rather than later.

The students and volunteers at fossilfree stanford.org are right: It "is unconscionable to pay for our education with investments that will condemn the planet to climate disaster." Stanford's participation in creating greenhouse gases is participation in the biological impoverishment of our world and the resulting widespread suffering and chaos. We as members of the Stanford community ought to do all we can to defund climate change.

Alumni, parents and students can submit their letters/comments at fossilfreestanford.org. The Board can take positive action. Please do.
Dan Greaney, '79
Redding, California

Keep Class Notes

I was dumbfounded when I read Dick Babb's letter ("Why Class Notes?" March/April) suggesting the elimination of Class Notes. His letter was doubly perplexing because not only is the suggestion abhorrent, but Babb is a member of the Class of 1956, one of the university's most social classes of all time. We have consistently set attendance records at our reunions, have had record entries into our reunion class books, and have been the first class to create and only class to publish a well-supported 55-year-reunion class book that gave our classmates a chance to foresee the future.

Class Notes are a wonderful way of keeping up with old college chums, not only of our class but also of classes before and after us who were in school with us. So many connections have been made and remade because of Class Notes that I'd hate to guess at the impact they have made. Everyone I know reads them first.

Our class correspondent, R.D. Aikins, has been pounding out our '56 column for 58 years! Thanks, R.D., for your incredible dedication, which we have enjoyed and from which we have benefited. So, keep Class Notes as a running history of what Stanford folks are doing in their after-Stanford years, which, in many instances, is as interesting as some of the items that appear in this best-of-all-possible alumni magazines.
Terry Badger, '56
Escondido, California

Thinking Matters

Your piece on Gerhard Casper's new book was enjoyable and provocative ("A Presidency Revisited," January/February). One statement that jumped out at me was that undergraduates need a course like Civ or IHUM to get up to speed about world culture and the history of ideas, prefaced by "If I were influential. . . ." I do hope that this opinion is received as coming from one who knows that of which he speaks. Current thinking that one-quarter of a humanities overview could suffice as a foundation for university education is an implausible proposition. Then, to call such an approach Thinking Matters is to substitute irony or cynicism for wit.

My experience in taking the three-quarter History of Western Civilization course in 1965 was that it very much set the table for a lifetime of learning and teaching. I came to college with little appreciation for the scope, time frame or magnitude of civilization's diverse origins. To learn of the central role of Islam for over a millennium, or the impact of 40 centuries of agriculture in the Celestial Empire, or the power of important people and contributions too numerous even to catalog is a humbling experience. The European canon alone raised challenges. Questions such as where is the perennial divide between materialism and idealism rooted, how did Germany in a few generations go from the heights of Romanticism to the depths of Nazi nihilism, or what is the notion of infinite human perfectibility and is it a fantasy or a possibility, were some of the issues with which we had to become acquainted. Eight to 10 weeks is an insufficient time period for anyone seeking to be more fully informed.

I recall when the psychedelic '60s were giving way to the cyber '70s, and most of the "old" acid heads were coming back down to earth and re-engaging with referent society and life on the material plane. The new world of personal computers was taking off, and one would hear the starry-eyed acolytes speaking of "the magic of computers." Whether called magic or science and technology, it is useful to weigh the current paradigm in the light of 10,000 years of so-called progress; to know where we've been to ascertain more fully where we might be going, so to speak. Overemphasis on instrumental learning may leave one in the clouds in more ways than one. If Stanford Tech wants to get back to university level in undergraduate humanities, the Trustees may want to listen to their "uninfluential" and highly respected former president.
John Fredrich, '68, MA '79
Palo Alto, California

Fraternities

“What They Stood For” by Mike Antonucci (March/April) brought to mind what might well have been another “Sigma Chi” event 10 years earlier at Stanford. I was living in the Alpha Tau Omega house my sophomore year when there was very serious consideration by the brothers to pledge a black student. I have lost memory of some of the specifics, including his name, but well remember the intensity of discussion as we contemplated going against the “all-white Christian” Southern national ATO.

Somehow it was then learned that Dean Donald Winbigler “strongly dissuaded” members of the chapter from going ahead with the pledging [and] the black student was not pledged. I don’t recall any further reaction, except some gleeful exchanges some time later when it was learned that the 1,000th ATO pledge was at the Stanford chapter, and in spite of his having a very Jewish last name, he was invited to a national ATO gathering to be so honored.

I felt anger over the episode with the man who should have been accepted as a black brother. On the verge of quitting the fraternity, I recall being encouraged by our live-in graduate student manager, with whom I shared my feelings, to “fight within” to change things. As it turned out, I became a sponsor at Wilbur Arroyo the next year, with less involvement in the chapter, and then moved off campus my senior year. It was during that year (1956-57) that I wrote a letter to the Daily in which I expressed my indignation: “Montgomery has integrated their buses while Stanford fraternities remained segregated!”

I received a call from one of the paper’s reporters, who asked if I would be willing to acknowledge that I had been in one of the fraternities. I said that would be OK but did not specify to which fraternity I had belonged. She took the liberty to sign my letter “Jim Lauer, ATO.” What resulted was both confirming and scary (for ATO brothers living there). On the night after the letter was published, crosses were erected and perhaps lit afire on the ATO’s front lawn. While I stated to an ATO friend that I had not intended to specify my membership, he was still livid and spoke emotionally of how the front lawn event had frightened him.

As the story about Ken Washington noted, the ATOs had already cut ties with the national organization in 1961. Since I did not maintain ties with the fraternity after my graduation, I do not know the details of that disaffiliation. However, when I later learned of it, it made me pleased that I had belonged to a group of brothers who finally learned enough was enough and struck out on their own.
Jim Lauer, ’57, MD ’65
Grand Junction, Colorado

I found your story on Sigma Chi’s admission of black pledge Ken Washington in 1965 most interesting. However, it lacked some important context.

Alpha Tau Omega actually initiated the battle against racial, religious and ethnic discrimination in Stanford’s then all-white fraternity system in 1961, when it admitted four Jewish members. After being expelled from the national organization in March of that year, the chapter changed its name to Alpha Tau Omicron—Omicron, of course, actually representing the letter “O” in the Greek alphabet—and began admitting black members.

By the time I joined in 1967, Stanford’s ATO chapter had at least a dozen black members. Every new class in that period was integrated, including ours, and I don’t recall that being the case with another campus fraternity.

Under intense pressure, ATO national adopted new bylaws in 1966 pledging to “not discriminate in its membership requirement against any person on the basis of race, color, creed or national origin.” However, Stanford’s ATO chapter remained independent.

I remember three big, burly men walking into the tube room one night when I was watching TV with seven or eight of our black members. They introduced themselves as “Taus from Texas” and asked if there were any “bro” present. Informed we were all “bro,” they beat a quick retreat. It was evident they had no idea what to make of us. I’m sure it gave them quite a tale to tell back home.

Washington would have found plenty of company in our house.
Steve Bagwell, ’70
McMinnville, Oregon

Kenny and Charlotte were our landlords in East Palo Alto, where we rented a tiny one-bedroom converted garage from them. We were separated by a mostly unlocked door and became friends over the year that we lived there. The small African-American community at Stanford referred to them as “KennyandCharlotte,” one word, and Baby Kenny. The Stanford article opened up the immeasurable grief we all felt when Charlotte died, and it took my husband and me nearly a week after reading the article to fully remember that day and the long days that followed. We had boxed it up and hidden it away, and I had not spoken about it in over 35 years. Kenny’s forward thinking and brashness, Charlotte’s wit and clear intelligence, and their love of Baby Kenny made them a strong partnership that everyone who knew them missed profoundly.
Deborah H. Kirtman, ’70
Pasadena, California

Your latest issue boasts of Stanford’s diversity: a marvelous collection of students from a variety of races, creeds and backgrounds. But alas, you ignore the dead horse on the living-room floor. I refer to your fraternities and sororities—archaic guilds that have denied thousands of students the opportunity of a lifetime. Between 1966 and 1971, I learned of these abominations while attending the Medical School, where my class included several former Stanford undergraduates. Though intellectually gifted, their most memorable events were “beer blasts”—riotous frat parties that lasted long into the wee hours. Worse yet, most of their “brothers” shared similar backgrounds and interests. Thus during their college years they learned very little about the wondrous breadth of humanity. To quote one recent graduate: “Having black or Hispanic or gay theme houses was counterproductive because it segregated students into factions that were race-, ethnic-, or sex-preference based.  People got nothing but reinforcement for their point of view.”

At Harvard College I found the quality of teaching uneven, but the house system proved a godsend. In Winthrop House, I mingled every morning, noon and night with the most eclectic student body on the planet: wealthy Yankees, poor Southerners, preppies, public school graduates—you name it, all sharing a common library and dining hall and rec room. Faculty members were bribed to dine with us on a regular basis, while graduate students—Barney Frank among them—lived in the dorms to help maintain order. Thus major political events always found Barney holding court at one end of a table in our dining hall and an opponent at the other, while kibitzers savored an unforgettable experience. Better yet, every weekend, houses sponsored cultural events, including plays, play readings, concerts, musicals etc. A lot more enlightening than beer blasts—won’t you agree?
John Gamel, MD ’71
Louisville, Kentucky

In April 1962, an African-American freshman named Morrison Warren accepted an offer to join the Stanford chapter of Delta Tau Delta. He would become the first black member of the national Delta Tau Delta fraternity.

We sent a few delegates to the Delt national convention in August 1962 in New Orleans. During the meeting we learned that one of the attending governing body members, Tom  Clark, was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court—what a comforting discovery! We realized that the fraternity could not object to our decision to pledge this person since Justice Clark was in such a high-profile position, both within the fraternity and our government. When we approached him with this news he congratulated us, and informed the rest of the attendees of our courageous step.
           
This was a trailblazing moment: MLK had yet to deliver his spellbinding “I have a dream” speech (August 1963) and the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed two years later. Sigma Chi’s Stanford chapter also made a bold decision to pledge an African American. It was a hugely positive step for them and for Stanford. Our decision three years earlier was based on the same criteria: Morrison’s achievements and character. Race was not a factor. I suspect that our pioneering accomplishment did not go unnoticed by our friends at Sigma Chi.
John Skeen, ’63, MBA ’66
San Francisco, California

Tsk, tsk. A heart-warming article about Ken Washington, but unless our dorm resident assistant, Howi, was lying to us all those many years ago: (1) It’s never “Frisco”—always “San Francisco” or “The City”; and (2) there are no “frats” at Stanford—only “fraternities.”
Chris Hungerland, ’62
Suffolk Park, Australia

I am an alum of the pediatrics residency program, 1971. I may have something to add to the great, if somewhat sad, story of the Sigma Chi episode.

I was a Sigma Chi member at the University of Chicago in 1950, Chapter OO (prophetic?). Freshmen could not rush at Chicago, so members were graduate or professional students. We pledged a black law student in about 1959 while I lived at the house. My introduction had been through a classmate who invited me and a member from the University of Idaho for lunch. We were greeted at the door by member Marshall Lowenstein, and the Idaho Sig made an audible remark about no Jews in Sigma Chi where he came from.

The Saturday following the pledge of the black student, we were visited by a carload of angry old white guys from national headquarters in nearby Evanston. They took away our charter. We had no civil rights law to help and we laughed the old red-faced cusses off. The house was sold the next year to the Quaker church, and I lived my last semester in the International House with a classmate.
Fred Matthies, MD
Portland, Oregon

The discussion of ethnic issues in the March/April issue raises the issue of defining ethnicity. For example, how does one define black and white? My handkerchief is white. The ink in my ballpoint pen is black. Most people are a blend and are somewhere in between. President Obama, as an example, is part Kenyan and part Irish. If you line everyone up according to skin color, where do you draw the line? I remember an acquaintance, years ago in Los Angeles, who told me one day that he was black. He looked white to me, and I always figured he was a white guy passing as black for some reason.

The term white has been used somewhat carelessly to refer to anyone from Europe, including Swedes, Irish, Hungarians and Italians—but not Spanish, who for some reason have been set apart. The term black has been used to refer to any ethnic group from Africa including Somalis, Zulus, Nigerians and Moroccans. The terms tend to be unspecific and somewhat vague. And, of course, you have people with dark skin from areas other than Africa.

About 20 years ago, when I was helping my brother look up material for family history, we traced family roots back to the dim recesses of the past. We came up with many surprises. I would have a difficult time identifying myself with any particular ethnic group. Throw a dart at a map. When I was a graduate student at Stanford, a faculty member asked me once if I was English. I told her that one of my uncles would be highly insulted if someone called him English.

The Stanford student body has diverse ethnicity, but that would probably apply to most of the individual students.
Fred E. Camfield, MS ’64, PhD ’68
Vicksburg, Mississippi

Wind Power

I just want to compliment the Stanford people who don’t want to invest in any “fossil fuels.”

I also want to wish them lots of luck when it’s a perfectly calm day and they have to rush their child to one of those great wind-farm-run hospitals.
Jake (Jerry) Butts, ’63, MBA ’65
Topanga, California