Chronicle of the University of California

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Issue #5
Against the Grain: Conflict and Controversy at the University of California
Carroll Brentano, ed.
Spring 2002

Excerpts:
(in PDF form)

Table of Contents

"The Laughing Horse:
A Horse Laugh at the University"
by William M. Roberts

In the 1960s the university was known as enraged, embittered, and embattled - sometimes justly. But much happened before and after those years: faculty revolted against the president and the regents; students agitated for their high-level moral rights and their low-level fun; neighborhoods were angered by campus expansion; women faculty and students demanded new curricular opportunities. Free speech and civil rights have remained bones of contention for over one hundred years. The essence of most disputes, sometimes carried out thoughtfully in the classroom and committee meeting and sometimes violently and tragically in the streets, has been authority vs. freedom. "Against the Grain" illustrates, in many ways and on the campuses of Davis, Irvine, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Berkeley, that struggle.