What is EEO?

 EEO (Expanded Educational Opportunities) was a scholarship program introduced at Macalester College in the 1970-71 school year. The advent of the program was promoted by students and staff with significant support and influence from the Black Liberation Affairs Committee (BLAC) who were advocating for the diversification of the colleg. Their activism helped build a consciousness among the Macalester students, staff, and faculty, leading to a proposal for what would become EEO. They challenged both the Board of Trustees and President Arthur Flemming to take action on a necessary increase to diversity on campus in December of 1968. The plan was originally intended to bring more “African Americans from an economically disadvantaged background” to the college but the language was changed to “underprivileged students from a variety of racial and regional background'' which would include the EEO demographic shift to largely Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students. The program would fully fund the tuition, housing, counseling, and any other needs of 75 minority students who would otherwise be unable to attend Macalester College. While there was pushback from white students and administrators, the program started with strong support from a considerable number of students and staff as proven by the roughly $20,000 they raised to help fund it. EEO students were welcomed to campus a couple months early to help them adjust to the new Macalester community and get to know what resources they could access before the school year began. The college had considered the need for an adjustment period for EEO students and support through counseling and an increase in BIPOC staff. What they did not consider was how both the Macalester community and the surrounding area had the potential to be staunchly discriminatory to these students, making it incredibly othering to be an EEO student. 

Legacies of Segregation

In the time that EEO was being introduced, Congress had recently passed the Fair Housing Act of 1968 which included prohibiting race based discrimination for the sale and rental of housing. While it is evident that racial housing discrimination is still a very prevalent issue, reaction to the policy tended to actively defy the values of it. This brought about housing marches in the Macalester area as landlords continued to deny rentals to students based on race. In the spring of 1969, there was a specific instance in which a local landlord employed this practice and refused to rent his property to two Black Macalester students. This was met with a strong reaction from staff and students alike, bringing 80 people, including President Flemming, to organize a rally that progressed to a 10 day protest, picketing outside of the rental property until the landlord agreed to lease to the students. 

Instances of housing injustice like this provides an insight to the legacy of environmental injustice and how it has presented itself in the Macalester community over the years (Johnston 1969). White landlords in the already affluent Mac Groveland neighborhood continuing to profit off of land ownership and exclude marginalized groups from participation in it is inherently in direct opposition to the values of environmental justice. There is a significance to who occupies land and denying a lease, especially with this intent, is to keep groups from being able to exist in a community.  The unspoken policy of renters was to practice housing discrimination to maintain segregation and resist diversification of the neighborhood, reinforcing the redlining of the area.  Redlining is a practice that began in the 1930’s that involved turning Black people towards or away from certain neighborhoods or denying house loans to ensure segregation was the standard. The lasting effects of it show how separate racial groups were and still are in the Twin Cities, which is especially prevalent with Macalester’s proximity to the Rondo neighborhood. Through a 1969 Mac Weekly series called “Crisis in Black and White” about the often unacknowledged issue of race relations in the Summit-University area in a period in which it was experiencing a rapid growth in the Black population with minimal support for these communities. Students note the visible division in unacknowledged redlining that kept permitted places for Black people to live distinctly separate from where the white population resided. The denial to lease the property in the year before EEO started cannot be regarded as an isolated incident. It speaks to a greater struggle that new, marginalized students arriving to the area for the attraction of the program, would soon be facing.

Despite the EEO program being well intentioned, aspects of the plan neglected to consider how living in the highly segregated Macalester area would impact the minoritized students they were inviting to the school. Even looking further down the line to the late 1990’s after the EEO program was terminated, the supplementary programs like the cultural house reinforce themes of environmental injustice as a space reserved for people of color shared a backyard with a garbage dump. An ignorance of the legacy of environmental injustice in St. Paul and the lack of infrastructure to actually build an inclusive community for these students at Macalester clearly presented issues with the EEO program. However, as the first class of EEO students graduated from the college, administration shifted away from trying to remedy these problems and instead took this as an opportunity to diminish investment in the program.

Protest at 77 Mac

Dewitt Wallace was largely responsible for the fallout of EEO due to the power he held in Macalester’s decision making. His name may be recognizable to today’s students from the library, fine arts building, residence hall, and scholarships which all share the “Wallace” title. As a former student of the college and founder of the successful magazine, Reader's Digest, Wallace was one of the most substantial donors to the college. His seemingly bottomless contributions allowed maintenance of the school and experimentation with programs like EEO. With the amount of money he was putting in, he was sure to keep an eye on how his funds were being spent. 

In 1970, Dewitt Wallace pulled his funding from the school upon discovering how much of his investments were dedicated to supporting the EEO program, stating that they were “in violation for the purpose in which the funds were established.” By 1974, the school was left in a precarious financial position because his contributions alone were largely keeping the school from bankruptcy. The Board of Trustees pushed President Flemming out of office and brought James Robinson into the position to manage the increasingly complex budget. He proposed a significant cut to the program which planned to decrease the budget by $78,000 and reduce the number of EEO students per year to 40, marking the beginnings of neglect to the program. 

As this news was made public, EEO students organized mini protests on move-in day and at convocation to try to reverse the decision. None of their efforts were successful in reinstating the budget and attention the program was meant to receive. EEO students and supporters led by president of the BLAC, Melvin Collins, decided their best course of action would be to organize a sit-in at 77 Mac which, at the time, housed a majority of the significant campus administrative operations. 22 EEO students prepared to occupy the building for however long was necessary. Over the first few days of what would be an 11 day stay in Macalester’s administrative building, hundreds of people from the campus and community alike picketed outside of the building in support of the EEO students working to restore the program to its original state. Negotiations with President Robinson were lengthy and unsatisfying with much conflict between him and the students. Eventually, they settled on a $14,000 cut to the program and a promise to continue the EEO program for at least 5 more years at the 40 student per class capacity. 

The significant drive held by BLAC reinforces motivations behind critical environmental justice as they prove how effective a non-state organization can be in enacting change. The involvement of BLAC across its history at the school, from their student publications to social movements, demonstrate how getting more radical when the system is complacent is a worthwhile necessity. 

What’s Lost as We Lose EEO

As the EEO program gradually died out by the late 1970’s due to a decrease in funding and support, there was a greater significance revealed about the values of the college and how they relate to environmental justice. Failing to follow through with EEO demonstrates an aspect of environmental racism concerning preventing a large sect of minority students from accessing higher education. With the rapid reduction in number of students it supported, there is a dispensability factor added onto the discourse of the movement which communicates that the students who could benefit from EEO were not worth the concern and investment of the school and thus “discourages future enrollment.” David Pellow defines the pillar of indispensability as an “intensified focus on the ways that humans and more-than-human actors are indispensable to the present, and are necessary for building sustainable, just, and resilient futures.”  Letters from EEO students in protest to the defunding clearly reveal this sentiment was felt amongst the student body at the time. Especially with the school having proven in the past that they are capable of attracting and servicing the needs of minority students, backing out on the plan feels highly intentional and discriminatory. 

The institution of higher education is already constructed to exclude marginalized groups from participation. One of the main goals the college set out through the EEO program was to  “take a large responsibility in the education of distinguished graduates who will play an important role in determining the destiny of our pluralistic society.” (EEO Advisory Council Proposal) In the first year EEO students were on campus, it quickly came to their attention that they were being used as representatives of their entire race groups to serve as tools of education for their white counterparts. The objectifying nature of this phenomenon perpetuated an unwelcoming environment on campus that put an unfair expectation on these students. 

Cultural Houses

With the decline in EEO, financial struggles, and the school wanting to keep a low profile after the amount of “negative” attention brought to Macalester, the priorities of the college shifted and less resources were allocated to fostering the minority community on this campus. During the era of the EEO program, there were three cultural houses–the Black house, the Hispanic house, and the Indian Center– in the Macalester area which were dedicated spaces for minoritized students to gather, organize, and program. These spaces acted as an escape from the predominantly white institution and helped build community among these students, many of which were at the college because of EEO. The most active among them was the Black house which acted as a major landmark for Black, college-age people not just at Macalester but across the state of Minnesota. With the decline in EEO and, with it, minority student enrollment in the college, it was eventually sold in the 1980’s and replaced with various, consecutively poorer accommodations over the next few years. The Hispanic House and Indian Center, which also faced several moves and downgrades throughout the 70’s, followed suit. Soon after, these houses were eventually closed as well and relocated to singular rooms in the Student Union (now known as the Campus Center) with the explanation that it will “remedy the perceived exclusivity of racial group houses.” In this statement, the school proved an active prioritization of whiteness over the success of minority students on campus, especially in the area of fostering a cultural identity. 

Through the cultural house’s lack of use, it’s overwhelmingly evident that this replacement wasn’t sufficient in providing that community space for minority students at this undeniably predominantly white institution. Pellow’s pillar on indispensability comes into question as the removal of these houses weakened an already struggling community of Macalester students. Members of the student cultural organizations at the time stated their concerns that the loss of these properties would reduce the opportunity for cultural activities and the potential for students to engage with their culture. Places that were once considered an “oasis in the desert of whiteness” disappeared in a  shockingly short span of time. With all of the value felt from them amongst the minority student body, administration ignored their needs in entirety and fell through on the school’s EEO mission of ensuring these minority students will be included in resilient futures. 

The EEO program may not have been perfect but our current solutions to promote diversity are even less effective than this equity plan that was active in the 1970’s. For Macalester to follow through on its promise of multiculturalism, the school could take a deeper look into what aspects of EEO worked and how they could be adapted into today’s setting. While these references have manifested in campus institutions like the Department of Multicultural Life and the aforementioned Cultural House, it is apparent that these resources are not sufficient in providing the support that minoritized students could use at this school. Drawing inspiration from the dedicated staff, counselors, and programming available to EEO students could help resolve some of this institution’s equity issues and attract more BIPOC students to the school.

When reading theory on Environmental Justice, one often considers what action they themself can take to create change. Becoming familiar with theory is crucial in understanding how to properly approach action, but that does not undermine the necessity for action either. Throughout the 1980’s, the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the USA, two world superpowers of the time, left the threat of nuclear war hanging over the heads of all who knew about it. Many tried to go about life as normal and pay no direct attention to the threat; however, several Macalester students engaged in forms of anti-nuclear war protest as a means of vocalizing their disapproval of nuclear weapons. By looking through the Mac Weekly Archives to find secondary sources, mostly in the forms of articles and prints, I intend to closely examine the strategies these anti-nuclear war protestors used. Learning about their strategies will be useful in understanding potential ways to engage with Environmental Justice protests today, while also exposing the harm nuclear weapons would cause. 

Environmental Justice started as a grassroots social movement that exposed the ways environmental harm is linked with racism. Robert D. Bullard, who is often referred to as the “Father of Environmental Justice,” cited many examples of damaging waste facilities being built in areas mostly populated by people of color, writing that “race was found to be the most potent variable in predicting where these facilities were built”. Thus, the idea of environmental racism was finally realized as a systematic policy that negatively targets an individual or community based on their race. Threats of nuclear war have a clear connection to environmental harm, as they threaten to end all of life itself. But, as with many environmental issues, many people are not aware of the connection between nuclear weapons and racism. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a coalition of organizations advocating for a total ban on nuclear weaponry from the United Nations. On their website, they have included numerous case studies on nuclear weaponry creating nuclear waste which is difficult to dispose of. One case study in particular focused on the exile  of the people of Enewetak Atoll, due to US conducted bomb testing on the Marshall Islands. The people were removed from their homes in 1947 and not allowed to return back until 1980 with “unrealistic usage restrictions.” ICAN reports that “the U.S. government now contends that the crater was built to store the debris, not protect the rest of the nearby environment from its contents”. Not only do nuclear weapons pose a constant threat to the entire world, they have harmful impacts that can be realized right now. They make safe and healthy living on certain pieces of land unfeasible, and the land they target is often inhabited by people of color, or people of color are made to relocate into these areas. The effects of nuclear weaponry are still being realized today, as ICAN reported that in 2009 the Australian government gave land that was used for nuclear testing back to the Maralinga Tjarutja community yet still were not completely sure it was viable to live on. 

When it comes to a global issue like nuclear war, it can feel impossible to tackle it on a local, smaller level. Macalester students used protesting as a tool to speak out and expose their community to the pressing issue of nuclear war. Some protestors in the 1980s also took more drastic measures to express their dissent to the creation and potential usage of nuclear weapons. Jeff Leys was a former Macalester student who was passionate about political activism surrounding anti-nuclear and peace groups. He entered a restricted area to cut the notch of a transmitter which would have been used to communicate with nuclear submarines to signal a launch. He believed they were an aggressive weapon, and was charged with a felony of criminal damage to property, resulting in him serving jail time and being fined (Bryan & Rice). Leys spoke with the Mac Weekly, advocating for everyone to be an activist in whatever way best suited them. Leys said, “Everyone has to be an activist. There are different kinds- marching, talking, and committing acts. You must find the level you are comfortable at and go one step beyond that" (Bryan & Rice). Leys approached activism by committing acts. His form of protesting was direct civil disobedience in the name of an issue he cared deeply about, and his work is still recognized today.