Grumbling at Grambling

The state of scholarship at most Negro colleges has generally been so low and the students traditionally so placid that the schools have rarely rated any kind of national notice. One exception is Louisiana's Grambling College, which has long had a reputation as one of the nation's most prolific producers of big-time athletes. But the demanding new mood of Negro students is no longer satisfied with athletic fame. Grambling student leaders recently shattered the serenity of the piney-woods campus in such a forceful protest over what they call "a second-rate atmosphere for learning" that National Guardsmen were summoned--and discontent over the incident is likely to last for years.

Founded as a high school in 1901, the college is a pleasant collection of neo-Georgian and modern brick buildings set amid rolling hills in the town of Grambling, whose 3,500 residents are outnumbered by the 4,153 students. The school draws $4.7 million a year in operating funds from the state--more per student than some of Louisiana's white colleges. Yet Student Body President Willie Zanders complains that the college would rather produce a pro football player than a Rhodes scholar, while other protesters charge that there are no "academic pros" on the faculty.

Better than Notre Dame. Grambling's administrators find the school's emphasis on athletics hard to deny--especially since President Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, 63, doubles as the college baseball coach. Since World War II, Jones' teams have won 463 games and lost only 79 in the mostly Negro Southwestern Athletic Conference. But Grambling's big sport is football. It has 20 alumni on the pro rosters this year --more than any school except Notre Dame--including All-Pro Defensive End Willie Davis of the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs' defensive tackle, Junious ("Buck") Buchanan, an A.F.L. All-Star.

The grumblers at Grambling do not berate athletics but contend that the priorities are reversed. Since 96% of the students are not athletes, the protesters have demanded that "academics be stressed first" and that students be given a voice in evaluating courses. The dissidents also attack "paternalistic" attitudes of administrators against exposed shirttails on men students, slacks on coeds, and beards.

Boycott & Blockade. The protesters recently organized marches through the campus, boycotted classes and blockaded the administration building for 48 hours. They scattered food and shattered dishes in a cafeteria riot, threatened a "lie-in" on the football field to scuttle a homecoming game. Jones, who has headed Grambling since 1936, asked for National Guard protection, and Governor John McKeithen dispatched 600 soldiers to the campus. When Jones expelled 39 of the demonstrators, nearly 1,000 other students quit in sympathy but returned a few days later.

The discontent still smolders, while 29 of the ousted students wage a legal battle for readmission. Their dismissal was upheld by the Louisiana State board of education last week in a bitter, clamorous hearing. As he told the board about the destruction of school property, Jones broke into tears and insisted that "we haven't lowered our academic standards --we've raised them." In fact officials of the Southern Regional Educational Board rate Grambling's faculty on a par with most Louisiana colleges, and 22% of its teachers hold Ph.D.s. The real point of the protest at Grambling is that Negro students are now aroused enough--and care enough--to risk expulsion in demanding a better college education.

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