Ill-Informed Protest

FOR TEN YEARS, the Afro-American Studies Department has lived from one crisis to the next, always lacking the stability and the faculty necessary to establish itself. After years of neglect, the Faculty has finally taken steps to rebuild the department. Recently, Dean Rosovsky, after an extensive search by an ad hoc committee, offered tenure in the department to three scholars in an attempt to establish a core of committed faculty who will try to set the department on a steady course.

About 50 students have protested the offer of tenure to Lawrence W. Levine, professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley. The students maintain that Levine is not committed to teaching Afro-American studies and that he is not qualified for tenure in the department. A leaflet written by the students states that Levine is currently doing research in Jewish studies and some students have objected to what they believe is an offer to Levine to chair the department.

The protest, based largely on rumor, ignores the facts of the case and may be unproductive to the future of the department. Levine has never done research in or taught courses in Jewish studies. Rosovsky states that he has discussed offering the department chair to Nathan I. Huggins, professor of history at Columbia University; he has never offered the position to Levine. Such arguments on the part of the students are irresponsible at best.

To say that Levine, who is white, is not committed to Afro-American studies is to disregard his history. Even if some scholars at Harvard may question his work, the search committee of top scholars and other experts call Levine one of the top ten Afro-American studies scholars in the country, and his work substantiates that label. As a professor at Berkeley since the mid-1960s, Levine has taught several Afro-American courses, contributed articles on Black studies to various historical journals and has been the principle force behind Berkeley's Black Cultural Research Project. Black scholars say that Levine's latest book, "Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom" is one of the best books on that subject. Clearly, the committee examined Levine's accomplishments and decided that he is qualified to teach at Harvard.

While it is true that Levine has not taught courses in Afro-American history in the past few years, he has taught such courses in the past. At Berkeley, moreover, Levine is tenured in the history department, not as an Afro-American studies professor. If he accepts the University's offer of tenure, he will do so knowing full well of his commitment to teaching Afro-American courses.

The blame does not rest entirely with the students, however. The executive committee which runs the Afro-Am Department rarely met with students, ignored their suggestions, and failed to inform students of the progress of the search, creating an atmosphere hospitable to rumors and panic. Better communication would help head off protests like this in the future.

Levine is qualified for the appointment and, as part of a last-ditch effort to salvage Afro-American studies, may be crucial in the rebuilding of the ailing department. Those who hope for a strong Afro-American Studies Department should not hesitate to seek input into the rebuilding process but should refrain from unsubstantiated attacks. No scholars--Levine, Knight, Huggins or anyone else--could possibly meet every possible objection; ideal Afro-American studies scholars may exist somewhere, but gathering them at Harvard will not occur overnight. These three seem the best hope for the department right now. We urge them to accept the appointments and ask the students to abandon ill-informed attacks.