Word: guinier
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Leonard's plan for the DuBois Institute stipulates no formal connection between the Afro Department and the research center. Ewart Guinier '33, chairman of Afro, and a student-faculty coalition insisted last spring that a formal structural connection is necessary for both black studies facilities to thrive. The Afro Department, they claimed, needs the institute's resources to support the continuing education of its undergraduate concentrators. The proponents of a formal alliance between DuBois and Afro also argued that the department, which only has one tenured professor teaching in it, would be in a better position to attract new faculty...
Leonard continues to maintain that the research institute and the Afro Department will develop a rapport as a matter of course. In a letter sent to Guinier last winter, Bok took essentially the same position. "I find it difficult to assume," Bok wrote, "that such an institute will not develop a close relationship with the department...
Despite Bok's reassurances, Guinier remains skeptical. "If you want a close relationship," he asks, "why don't you say so in the institute's charter...
When he came back to Cambridge in the fall of 1969 and joined the Faculty as chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department, he might have expected much less of a struggle to survive here. But whatever his expectations, Guinier remains on Harvard's hot seat...
There is one important reason why Guinier stands out at Harvard: At an institution where traditionalists abhor mixing scholarly pursuits with politics, Guinier endures as a blatantly political figure. His department was created and his appointment made in response to the ferment of student revolt. Five years later, when administrators strive to "depoliticize" things, Guinier still talks about the University's racism, and does it openly and frequently. He is almost out of place in the silent seventies, but he struggles and manages to survive...