part 1

THE 1976 REVIEW AND “THE FEELING AMONG WHITE STUDENTS”

A front-page article by Paul McGrath published on March 5^th, 1976, announces that the TYP is “plagued by serious problems.” The second triennial review of the program had been conducted by “independent assessors” in mid-February. Academically, while the TYP was successfully preparing and supporting students in gaining admission and successfully integrating into undergraduate programs, concerns remained regarding low performance in science courses. This was not the greatest concern of the assessors, however. The “serious problems” they identified were “charges of programme ‘irrelevance’ by white students, conflicts between university and outside community representatives on the programme’s Policy Committee, and feelings of mistrust between programme staff members and the Policy Committee.” The review had indicated that it was almost exclusively “Canadian-born students (white, black and native)” who were dropping out of the programme, whereas “immigrant” students who were “Oriental, African or European” were achieving 100 percent success rates in university admissions.

McGrath’s March 5th article homes in on the identified “problem areas,” highlighting the issue of “the feeling among the white students” that the program was “becoming increasingly irrelevant due to the heavy concentration on black studies.”  The assessors seem to have both questioned and affirmed this feeling, describing it as potentially “mistaken,” as well as “a sign of alienation and frustration.” McGrath reports that the assessors described the white students facing “a double problem of returning to school after a few years away and facing a course load geared towards third world studies.” The assessors’ proposed solutions to this “problem” of the white students’ feeling were to offer “cultural seminars” which McGrath reports would “amount to segregating the class in smaller tutorials” and to offer a separate black studies course, as opposed to including black studies within English and Social Sciences courses.

The March 5th article elicited powerful responses from the TYP community. In another front-page article, published the Varsity on March 8^th, McGrath acknowledges that what was identified as a review report by independent assessors in his previous article had in fact been written by the TYP Program Director, David Nimmo. The program was also under assessment by request of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities and the Governing Council at the time, to determine whether or not it would continue. The university is identified as having named “Professor Harry Crowe, former dean of Atkinson College, Vincent D’Oyley of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and Lyn Trainor of the university’s department of physics as the assessors who would complete that review.” Here, McGrath acknowledges that Nimmo’s report is “controversial” and disputed by some of the staff and students of the TYP, particularly around the issue of black studies and its role in the TYP curriculum. McGrath writes that “the protest The Varsity article [of March 5^th] received from both black and white students indicates a support for the programme that crosses racial barriers.” McGrath goes on to clarify several facts about both the TYP and the nature of the assessment, identifying the TYP as “the only academic programme at U of T that involves community representation on the decision-making body.

A brief letter to the editor signed by the assistant director of the program, Keren (misprinted “Karen”) Brathwaite “and 29 others, staff and students, of TYP” is printed on page 4, and is revealed to be the impetus for the cover feature. The letter articulates strong objection to the March 5^th article, identifying the director’s report as “his personal opinions about the programme” that were “highly controversial.” Noting the ongoing assessment determining the future of the TYP, the writers point to the danger of “such fallacious publicity” and demand “a front page retraction” of the March 5^th article and an apology to the programme and to the assessment committee. The assessors’ report was due at the end of the semester (April), and would become known as the Crowe report after the former dean who was among the assessors.

THE CROWE REPORT

The new academic year began with the TYP on a one-year suspension. An article on page 4 of the September 13^th issue of the Varsity reports on a “cold summer,” early during which the Governing Council voted to suspend the program. “Supporters of the TYP and other members of the of T community charged that the ‘Crowe report’ on which the decision was based contained serious exploited the university’s fears of black radicalism to create an atmosphere of hysteria.”

The university’s senior administration subsequently formed a task force to “study the need for such a program at U of T.” In the middle of the summer, on July 15^th the provost had given the SAC and GSU just five hours to submit names of nominees for the task force.  Unable to generate a list of nominees in so little time, the students boycotted the task force. Brian O’Riordan, government commissioner of the Students’ Administrative Council, is quoted in the September 13^th article as having argued that “More and more, students and faculty are getting really turned off by the whole process of Governing Council,” because the administration was “formulating and deciding everything.” O’Riordan also articulates these concerns in an interview published on page 9 of this same issue, as does SAC president Shirley French in an interview published on page 4 of the September 20^th issue. The task force had set an October 4^th deadline to receive input on the matter, which students deemed an inadequate amount of time for soliciting briefs.

The deadline would be extended to October 12^th, however the SAC maintained their boycott of the process. As it was the Ministry of Colleges and Universities that had provided the TYP’s initial funding, the students prepared a brief and requested the ministry study the TYP directly for itself. The dates for the hearings were announced in the October 18^th of the Varsity; they would be on October 25, October 26, November 8 and November 10. Finally, in the December 1^st issue of the Varsity we learn that SAC president Shirley French and student Governing Council representative and SAC member Michael Treacy have been appointed to the taskforce halfway through the hearings.

The September 13^th article describes how conflicts over decision-making had developed between community members and TYP staff, as well as between university-appointed administrators and staff. Moreover, they explain,

Since many of the students in the program were Canadian native people, black Canadians, and immigrants from the West Indies, much of the program’s content centred on problems faced by working-class people, minorities, and the Third World. Bitter disputes took place over the questions of community vs. university control of the program, the academic content of the program, and the political viewpoint of prospective staff in hiring decisions.

The article goes on to note that the Crowe report had been negatively focused on the “program’s political and administrative problems”—

The report stated that ‘a new concept of the purpose of the Programme appeared with a move toward Black Third World studies and a Marxist orientation. Racist charges, but more important, a climate of continuing racial tension emerged. Several individuals identified as members of the Communist Party of Canada (Moscow oriented) on the Policy Committee and its sub-committees.’ The Crowe report did not offer any suggestion on whether all university courses dealing with Black and Third World studies or Marxism should be suspended also.

Finally, the author explains, despite a willingness on the part of the Academic Affairs committee to allow the TYP to “continue under a new administrative structure providing for tighter university control”, the university’s senior administrators insisted on the suspension and after “violently anti-TYP stories and editorials in the Toronto press,” Governing Council voted to suspend the program.