chronology
1937 Rule 17 enacted by UC President Sproul. Comes following a suggestion by Peace Strike planners to send medical aid to Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The Rule bannes "meetings or events which by their nature, method of promoting, or general handling, tend to involve the University in political or sectarian religious activities in a partisan way."
1949 UC Regents require loyalty oath of all University employees.
1950 31 University of California faculty members and more than 100 other UC employees refuse to sign the oath and are fired by the University.
1952 California Supreme Court strikes down the loyalty oath and orders the reinstatement of the fired professors.
May 16, 1956 "The Great Panty Raid." Thousands of UC Berkeley students "riot around UC Berkeley sororities and dorms. The police and fire department are called to subdue the crowd.
September 1956 A campus-wide committee of graduate and undergraduate students organize to seek a formal amendment or "modification to Rule 17" Students included Hank DiSuvero, Peter Franck, and Pat Denton who would later become members of TASC.
1957 TASC (Toward an Active Student Community) is formed by student leaders Fritjof Thygeson, Rich White and Ralph Schaffer. Composed largely of graduate students in the social sciences, with a smaller number of undergraduates and a few students from the sciences and engineering.
October 1957 Rule 17 modified, under new rule, non-recognized "off campus" student groups may hold meetings special lectures on campus, however all publicity had to be approved by the Dean of Students and must not appear to in any way imply University sponsorship or endorsement. The rule did not allow these groups to hold membership or business meetings on campus.
Fall 1957 Mike Miller, one of the founders of TASC, resigns his office as ASUC Representative-at-large to run a "slate of like-minded candidates." His resignation came after the ASUC Executive Committee failed to pass a "Declaration of Conscience" on conditions in apartheid South Africa. Miller suggested that what was needed was a campus political party. The idea for a student political party came from a course Thygeson took from Professor Jensen at San Diego State College. Most of those who would join TASC first met each other in William Kornhouser's course on Social Movements.
Miller, Jo Anne Fowler, Alan Madian, Rich White, Patrick Hallinan and Sally Hagerty, were the first candidates to run on the SLATE in the fall election.
February 5, 1958 SLATE officially organizes. Temporary SLATE Coordinating Committee includes Charleen Rains, Owen Hill Pat Hallinan, Peter Franck, Fritjof Thygeson and Mike Miller.
February 28-March 1, 1958 SLATE organizing convention, roughly 100 students attend.
March 1958 SLATE begins publishing the independent student paper the Cal Reporter. UC administration rules forbid distribution of the paper on campus, so the paper was available only on the city side of Sather Gate. The $23 cost to print 5,000 copies of each issue was largely met by holding off-campus beer parties at fifty cents per person.
March 4, 1958 ASUC Executive Committee decides that student political parties should be allowed to participate in student government and should not be discriminated against by election rules. (SLATE was a "political party.")
March 19, 1958 ASUC Executive Committee rescinds its early decision and disallows parties on the ballot.
May 28, 1958 University approves SLATE as a "student organization concerned with the ASUC" but not as a political party. The National Student Association had discussed the idea of student political parties for a number of years and the ASUC Executive Committee had wavered on the issue, first voting to allow political parties, then changing its mind and voting against the idea. UC Berkeley campus administration followed this lead and ruled that SLATE could not be a "political party."
September 19,1958 Clark Kerr inaugurated University of California President (Kerr had been named President in 1957).
Fall 1958 SLATE members meet with Deans Shepard and Stone, where they are requested not to refer to themselves as a "political party."
March 1959 SLATE attempts to hold a rally in support of Proposition C on the Berkeley City ballot. The measure, called the "Fair Housing Ordinance," was part of a campaign, ongoing since 1956 to force the University to stop listing rental units that were "white only."
March 9, 1959 Dean Stone refuses SLATE's written request to hold a rally, because a recognized UC organization cannot "support, endorse, advance, oppose, or defeat any political, religious, sociological or economic movement activity or program." Dean Stone made clear that while student organizations could take no action on Proposition C, students were free in as individuals, or as non-university recognized groups to engage in political activity.
March 11, 1959 Daily Cal reports that STATE chairman Cindy Lembcke was called to see Dean Stone, where she was told that the SLATE meeting called to protest the banning of earlier meeting would not be allowed either.
March 12, 1959 SLATE holds rally without official sanction of the University, non-SLATE member take the stage to show their support and suggest that they be punished along with SLATE leadership. 12 students were called for disciplinary hearings. Protests against the draconian policies of the administration led to Ernest Besig of the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) acting as their attorney. California Attorney General Stanley Mosk wrote an informal opinion in favor of the students; the Daily Cal editorialized in favor of SLATE's action.
May 1, 1959 Chancellor's office announces that it had approved the disassociation of graduate students from the ASUC. The decision was based on a voluntary graduate student survey and students were not allowed to vote on the change. Daily Cal editorials suggested the move was made to eliminate SLATE's growing popularity on campus and power in the ASUC. (May 4, May 6, 1959) Much of SLATE's electoral power came from graduate students and their disassociation from the ASUC took away a significant portion of SLATE's constituents.
May 15, 1959 SLATE candidate David Armor is elected ASUC president. Of eleven open positions on the ASUC, four SLATE candidates are elected, including two graduate student representative, Marv Sternberg and Cary McWilliams Jr., who ran un-opposed (the graduate student representatives were not allowed to serve their terms, following Chancellor Seaborg's May 22 announcement.
May 22, 1959 Chancellor announces just before spring semester ended that on September 1, 1959 graduate students would be released from the ASUC and the ASUC would be composed entirely of undergraduates.
September 11, 1959 Chancellor Seaborg sends a letter to ASUC president and SLATE member, David Armor, in which he makes clear that graduate student representatives no longer have a place on the ASUC Executive Committee, because graduate students were no longer members of the ASUC.
September 22, 1959 UC freshman Richard Casey withdraws from the University, forfeiting his Regents Scholarship, rather than enroll in ROTC.
October 23, 1959 UC President Clark Kerr issues what came to be known as the "Kerr Directives." The three directives include rules governing the student governments of various campuses, rules and requirements students need to follow to be recognized by the University, and rules governing the use of University facilities. For SLATE and student government, the most damning part of the Kerr Directives was the passage, "it is certainly not appropriate to permit student governments to speak either for the University or for the student body with reference to off-campus political, religious, economic, international or other issues of the time. Therefore, student governments and their subsidiary may not take positions on any such off-campus issues."
October 29, 1959 Daily Cal reports on SLATE criticism of Kerr Directives, including a protest rally to urge defiance.
November 17, 1959 ASUC Executive Committee sends letter to all UC Campuses, disassociating the ASUC from SLATE activities and opposing the actions of SLATE, including picketing, demonstrating and speaking against the Kerr Directives.
November 20, 1959 President Kerr presents revised set of regulations at the Academic Senate meeting. The section denying recognition to organizations that took part in off campus issues was changed to read. "The organizations must not be identified with any partisan political or religious group, or have as one of its principal purposes the taking of partisan positions identified with such a group."
February 1, 1960 Sit-ins begin in Greensboro, North Carolina, where four black college students refuse to move from a Woolworth lunch counter.
March 22, 1960 ASUC Executive Committee passes a motion to establish a committee of "Students Against Racial Discrimination" to collect funds for Southern student's legal and emergency food expenses. The Dean states that while he agreed with the spirit of the motion, he ruled the motion would need to be modified to comply with the Kerr Directives and further that funds could not be solicited on campus.
April 26, 1960 HUAC sends out subpoenas for its San Francisco hearing, including one to eighteen-year-old UC Berkeley sophomore and SLATE member, Douglas Wachter.
May 3, 1960 ASUC Executive Committee passed a motion to send a letter to the University of Illinois to protest the dismissal of Professor Leo Koch for writing a letter published in the editorial page of the Daily Illinois advocating premarital sex or trial marriages among mature adults. The letter was sent in direct violation of the Kerr Directive. The Executive Committee was ordered by the Chancellor to rescind the letter and was warned that if it could not abide by the rules drastic changes would be made to student government.
May 13, 1960 Anti-HUAC protests outside of San Francisco City Hall, where HUAC proceedings are taking place. Protests turn violent after police hose protesters. 68 people were arrested, including 31 UC students. SLATE members take part in the protest, along with other like-minded students and form the ad hoc group Students for Civil Liberties. The group circulates a petition protesting HUAC, over a thousand students and three hundred faculty members sign the petition within 3 days. The Daily Cal urged protests against the HUAC hearings. Protesters were not allowed inside the building, and when students sat down outside the hall and began singing songs, the police turned the fire hoses against them and hosed them off the stairs. The charges against all but one of those arrested were dropped (the one student was later acquitted by a jury). On the third day, the protesters were joined by several thousand longshoremen, and there was no further incident.
July 29-31, 1960 SLATE holds first summer conference at Mount Madonna, "The What and Why of the Student Movement. At the conference an anti-HUAC coalition is formed. Over 140 members of liberal, religious, civil rights and peace organizations from all over the country attend the weekend event.
1961 Eleventh Report of Un-American Activities in California includes large section detailing the "subversive" activities of SLATE.
March 1961 SLATE sponsors a talk by Frank Wilkinson on campus. Wilkinson had been twice called to testify before HUAC but had refused and had been sentenced to one year in prison for contempt of Congress. Wilkinson, who was accused by HUAC of being a communist organizer, would neither confirm nor deny the allegations. Many protest President Kerr allowing him to speak on the UC Berkeley campus, including Assemblyman Don Mulford. Carloads of citizens travel to Sacramento to protest Wilkinson's appearance, but Governor Pat Brown supports Wilkinson's right to speak on the campus.
May 1, 1961 KPFA radio announcer Mike Tigar declares his candidacy for ASUC president on the SLATE platform. (Tigar was also the narrator for the record "Sounds of Protest," which narrated the HUAC demonstrations in 1960.)
May 4, 1961 Malcolm X is denied permission to speech on the UC Berkeley campus.
May 11, 1961 Dr. Leo Koch spoke on campus at the invitation of SLATE.
June 10, 1961 SLATE loses on-campus status, after SLATE Chairman Michael Myerson was repeatedly referred to as Chairman of SLATE, "a campus political party," not a campus student organization, in publications.
June 28-30, 1961 SLATE holds second annual Summer Conference; topics include the HUAC, compulsory ROTC, campus press, and other civil liberties issues, as well as farm labor, civil rights, and peace and disarmament.
October 31, 1961 SLATE calls for an all night vigil on the steps of Sproul Hall to protest all nuclear testing. The new Dean of Students Katherine Towle denied approval of the event, but suggested "individual members of the campus community as individuals are, of course, free to assemble peaceably if they wish to do so." SLATE then withdrew sponsorship and called for individuals to attend as individuals. The event was held as planned.
November 1961 Exchange of letters between President Clark Kerr and SLATE members Ken Cloke and Roger Hollander.
Late 1961 SLATE publishes The Big Myth, which includes the text of letters between President Clark Kerr and Ken Clock and Roger Hollander. The pamphlet challenges the "big myth" of a liberal campus and political and academic freedom.
March 1962 An unauthorized rally takes place on campus in protest of resumed atmospheric atomic testing by the United States. Police are called by the Dean of Students to disperse the crowd. Part of the planned Charter Day protests.
March 23, 1962 SLATE and other groups protest President John F. Kennedy and US activities in Cuba at his speech at Charter Day Ceremonies. Frank Bardacke was chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for March 23, 1962 demonstrations. More then 88,000 people attend President Kennedy's lecture in Memorial Stadium, the largest event in the University's history.
July 27-29, 1962 SLATE Summer Conference is held on the topic "the Negro in America." The conference led to the formation of Bay Area Friends of SNCC.
June 21, 1963 UC Regents abolish the speaker ban.
June 27-28, 1963 SLATE Summer Conference is held in Berkeley; the topic of discussion is Educational Reform.
Fall 1963 SLATE begins publishing the SLATE Supplement to the General Catalog.
October 11, 1963 Malcolm X finally speaks on campus in a meeting sponsored by SLATE in Dwinelle Plaza.
November 8, 1963 Mel's Drive-in in Berkeley is picketed by the Ad Hoc Committee to End Discrimination, (organized by former SLATE chairman Mike Myerson), on charges of racial discrimination. The picket comes after a similar picket at the Mel's in San Francisco resulted in the arrest of 59 protesters.
1964 Acting Professor Eli Katz is denied promotion despite being recommended for advancement by Department. Katz had taken part in communist activities before his academic career.
February 1964 UC Berkeley Campus CORE (Congress on Racial Equality) pickets and holds shop-ins at Lucky supermarket. A picket line is also established at the Sheraton Palace in San Francisco, protesting against discriminatory hiring practices after the Lucky's settlement was announced.
February-March 1964 Sheraton Palace picketers reach 3000-4000. Police are called and over 167 people are arrested, many of who are members of the Ad Hoc Committee and UC Berkeley students.
April 1964 CORE member hold sit-in at Oakland's Auto Row.
July 29, 1964 UC Vice-Chancellor Alex Sherriffs resolves to end political activity and organizing on UC property at the corner of Bancroft and Telegraph. Kerr was out of the country and Chancellor Strong was on vacation in Hawaii at the time.
September 1, 1964 UC Regents ruling from spring of 1959, banning all sorority and fraternity requirements based on race, religion or national origin, goes into effect.
September 4-8, 1964 A flyer by the Ad Hoc Committee to End Discrimination inserted inside copies of the SLATE Supplement distributed from the Bancroft-Telegraph area of the campus. The flyer called for students to join the picketing of the Oakland Tribune.
September 1964 The SLATE Supplement includes an article by Brad Cleveland, calling for open fierce and thoroughgoing rebellion.
September 16, 1964 All student organizations receive a letter from Dean of Students Katherine Towle that, effective September 21, political activity will no longer be permitted on the 26 by 40 foot strip of University property at Bancroft and Telegraph (the width of a city street).
Jackie Goldberg, head of Campus Women for Peace, and her brother Art, outgoing chairman of SLATE, called an evening meeting of all the student political organizations to figure out what to do.
September 17, 1964 The United Front (which includes SLATE) forms and meets with Dean Towle to protest the new policy.
October 1, 1964 Jack Weinberg is arrested at CORE table in front of Sproul Hall. Students sit around police car, preventing Weinberg from being taken away. Demonstrators speak from on top of car. A few hundred demonstrators sit in at Sproul Hall and around police car all night.
October 2, 1964 7000 demonstrators occupy area between Sproul Hall and the Student Union. Police arrive and agreement is reached between students and administration by the evening. Known as the Pact of October 2, signed by Kerr and nine representatives of students groups, including 2 SLATE members.
October 3-4, 1963 Free Speech Movement (FSM) Forms at a noon meeting at Art Goldberg and Sandor Fuch's apartment.
December 1, 1964 After two months of trying to work with the University administration to drop charges against student leaders, the FSM issues an ultimatum and threatens direct action if the administration does not agree to drop charges for violating campus regulations within 24 hours.
December 2, 1964 Demonstrators pack Sproul Hall, about 1500 protesters managed to get inside.
December 3, 1964 3:00am Chancellor Strong requests that students disband, at 3:45am, Governor Pat Brown orders arrests. The newspapers reported that 801 people were arrested; in the end, 773 people were actually arrested.
December 8, 1964 SLATE, though not an official party, ran a full ticket of candidates in the fall ASUC election. All the candidates won by a substantial margin, including Brian Turner and Dusty Miller who were known as FSM activists. The total number of students voting, 5276, was twice the norm.
January 5, 1965 FSM holds first "legal" rally on Sproul Plaza.
March 9, 1965 University President, Clark Kerr and acting Chancellor Martin Meyerson resign. Chancellor Strong had been asked to take a leave of absence in January due to illness and his handling of the FSM.
March 13, 1965 Kerr and Meyerson withdraw their resignations at the Board of Regents meeting.
April 26, 1965 Mario Savio steps down as FSM leader.
April 28, 1965 FSM dissolves itself.
May 9, 1965 SLATE loses its ASUC majority in election. Former SLATE chairman Sandor Fuchs was defeated for ASUC president by a vote of 3970 to 2078. Though two SLATE candidates did win seats, SLATE lost its majority and by that fall, after losing more ground, SLATE was left with only one-third of the Senate votes.
October 1966 SLATE holds meeting to officially dissolve the organization.