The Role of Education in 1960s Movements for Equality

As the movements for equality emerged in the post-WWII era in America, it became clear that education played monumental role in each movement, especially the second wave Women's Movement, the Student Protest Movement, and the debate over bilingual education and affirmative action. All three of these movements saw education as a tool of oppression that had been implemented such that it promoted inequality. However, each movement recognized and emphasized the importance of education in its ability to liberate groups that were being discriminated against and sought to reform the education system in order to transform it from a tool of oppression to a tool of liberation. With the common goal of educational reform, the second wave Women's Movement, the Student Protest Movement, and the debate over bilingual education and affirmative action each outlined different proposals for reform to the educational system and each varied in how successful they were in the implementation of their suggested reforms.

The second wave Women's Rights Movement aimed to liberate women from their traditional roles and was fueled significantly by Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963). In her book, Friedan argues that women are oppressed through the societal expectation that they must fulfill the feminine mystique, which defines women based only on their biological roles as wife and mother. Friedan is extremely critical of the large role education has played, both in high school and higher education, in heavily influencing them to fulfill the feminine mystique instead of pursuing careers. In terms of higher education, more and more women were attending college but fewer were pursuing careers afterwards in comparison to the women who attended college before WWII. Additionally, more female students were dropping out to become housewives (Friedan, 150).

With these statistics in mind, Friedan recognized that the higher education institution was strongly influencing women and pushing them towards the role of housewives instead of encouraging them to pursue creative intelligence in different academic fields. She says, "The one lesson a girl could hardly avoid learning, if she went to college between 1945 and 1960, was to not get interested, seriously interested, in anything besides getting married and having children" and "thus higher education added its weight to the process by which American women during this period were shaped increasingly to their biological functions" (Friedan, 156). Higher education adapted its attitude and offered courses, which Friedan labels "sex-directed" education, that pushed women into these roles. Instead of offering challenging classes to women as they had done in previous decades, colleges created classes that focused on family household skills (Friedan, 166). Women were discouraged against pursuing actual academic fields and careers in not only college, but high school as well: "Sometimes a girl wanted to take a hard subject, but was advised by a guidance counselor or teacher that it was a waste of time" (Friedan, 161).

Although Friedan outlines her major criticisms of the oppression against women in the education system in America, she argues that true fulfillment for women can be found through creative purpose and that education is key to this liberation (Friedan, 344). She states, "The key to the trap is, of course, education. The feminine mystique has made higher education for women seem suspect, unnecessary and even dangerous. But I think that education, and only education, has saved, and can continue to save, American women from the greater dangers of the feminine mystique" (Friedan, 357). Second wave Women's Movement activists asserted that through education women could gain equality in society by pursuing jobs, receiving equal pay, and having an equal voice in democracy. This assertion is highlighted in the NOW Statement of Purpose (1966), which says, "we believe that it is essential for every girl to be educated to her full potential of human ability as it is for every body-with the knowledge that such education is key to the effective participation into today's economy" (NOW Statement of Purpose, MP: 285).

The statement of purpose also contends that there are numerous barriers in the form of discrimination against women in education: "We consider the decline in the proportion of women receiving higher and professional education to be evidence of discrimination" (NOW Statement of Purpose, MP: 285). With the second wave Women's Movement's acknowledgement of the oppression inflicted by the education system and emphasis on education as the path to equality, there are numerous proposals for reform to the education system.

Friedan proposes several reforms in The Feminine Mystique that she believes will make education more accessible to women. She notes that colleges need to offer classes that focus on academic disciplines instead of "self-enrichment" classes that do not prepare women for careers (Friedan, 362 & 268) and that they need to hire more female faculty members that are balancing their mother-wife roles and their careers to serve as positive role models for students (Friedan, 367). Friedan also emphasizes that a major reform needs to include a national education program, which would provide financial aid to women wanting to continue or return to their education, and access to day-care centers (Friedan, 370 & 390).

The second wave Women's Movement certainly brought awareness to the issue of women's rights and equality and the movement had several successes and failures in their attempts to reform the education system. Despite happening near the height of the second wave Women's Movement, in 1970 less than 10 percent of women held professional jobs despite the large number of college educated women and in the following year President Nixon vetoed legislation that would provide women with access to national day-care, which would have aided women pursuing education. However, in light of these failures there were also major successes for the movement's proposed reforms. The passing into law of Title IX of the Education Amendments in 1972 was a large de jure victory for the movement. Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program receiving federal funding. Similarly, the movement led to the filing of numerous lawsuits against universities to take action to end sex discrimination, which led to many universities opening more opportunities to women where they were previously denied (Friedan, 392).

Education was a major basis for the Student Protest Movement in the 1960s and student activists believed that the education system served as a tool of oppression, especially against their causes for protest, and needed to be reformed. Education played a major role in creating the movement since attending college became the norm for millions of young Americans. Attending college extended adolescence even longer than it had in past generations and college students did not have the responsibilities to jobs, families, or mortgages, which gave them more opportunities to explore new forms of political expression (Isserman and Kazin, MP: 263). Education created a place and the circumstances for new ideas to thrive. The Student Protest Movement can be traced back to 1960 to the student-based organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which sought to achieve participatory democracy among students and among society as a whole (Isserman and Kazin, MP: 260)

SDS soon found its roots in many of the causes of the other movements and used the ongoing Civil Rights Movement and the fight for racial equality as a jumping off point. From here, the movement expanded its causes to address what it saw as other injustices in American society, especially the escalation of the Vietnam War in the mid-1960s (FIlm: Rebels with a Cause). The Vietnam War directly affected students; the draft loomed over male students and many saw their friends leave for Vietnam and not return. Additionally, the escalation of the war forced many students to consider it to be an unjust war because the U.S. was becoming heavily involved in what was considered a civil war while violating the Geneva Accords, which was agreed upon only a decade earlier. Students saw the U.S. as a war machine as it pumped more money into the Vietnam War while neglecting domestic social issues.

As the Student Protest Movement began defining its causes, students began to see education as a tool of oppression despite that college had created the location and circumstances for the movement to happen. This is especially defined in the roots of Columbia University protests in 1968 and James Kunen's The Strawberry Statement (1968). Columbia erupted in protests as students saw how the university's oppression was coming to light and how it was embodying the government's injustices that they were fighting against. Students found out that Columbia was affiliated with the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), which conducted weapons research for the government and which directly contradicted their anti-war beliefs. Columbia had been supplying a list of class ranks to the draft board as well (Film: Rebels with a Cause).

Students also saw the school's racial oppression. The construction of the Morningside Park gym cut land from the primarily-black Harlem neighborhood and offered Harlem residents limited access, which the Harlem community and students viewed as segregation. The university had also been evicting tens of thousands of Harlem residents over the past decade (Kunen, 17). Tensions were fueled further when students became even more angered that the education system offered no participatory democracy and that they had no say over Columbia's decisions (Kunen, 121).

The protests that followed aimed to reform the education system by transforming it from an autocratic entity to one that embraced democracy. The students also wanted the school to end the construction of the Morningside gym and cut its ties with the IDA, which it ended up doing as a result of the protests (Kunen, 20). How successful the Student Protest Movement was in their goal of creating a more democratic education system is debatable. Columbia students did receive a response in their favor from the administration and more of a voice over the school's decision, but the reforms were not immediate or completely fulfilled. In his interview with a dean several months later, Kunen notes that even after the student protests in the spring the administration failed to acknowledge the university as democratic (Kunen, 265). Beyond Columbia, student protests were met with violence and even after the protests universities were slow to compromise with protestors.

The role of education was also especially important in the debate over the implementation of bilingual education and affirmative action. For immigrant and non-English speaking students, the education system seeks to teach them important material while helping them assimilate to American society and new school material by teaching them in English. Proponents of bilingual education assert that children can be taught simultaneously in both their native language and English in order for them to maintain academic progress with their English-speaking classmates while also maintaining a private cultural identity (Rodriguez, 34-35). In terms of the debate over bilingual education, the disagreements are over how exactly education serves as a tool for oppression and a tool for liberation. Proponents for bilingual education saw the lack of a bilingual education as a tool of oppression because students who were not fluent in English fell behind on the classroom curriculum since they could not grasp the material that was being taught in English and that this put them at a great academic and social disadvantage (Rodriguez, 34).

The proponents saw the implementation of bilingual education as a tool for liberating students because it helped teach them course material at an equal pace to their classmates, which created confidence in their academics while allowing them to keep their cultural identities. Contrastingly, opponents to bilingual education, especially Richard Rodriguez, contend that the oppressor and liberator roles are actually reversed. Rodriguez argues that bilingual education undermines the importance of English as a public language that unites students and that teaching a student in their native language actually diminishes and devalues the private cultural identity that child feels by using his family language in a public setting (Rodriguez, 18 & 35). As a child who only spoke Spanish until entering elementary school, Rodriguez attributes his academic success with the fact that he was taught only in English and that his schooling separated his public and student identity from his private cultural identity: "A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn't forget that schooling was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student" (Rodriguez, 47). Kentucky Democrat Walter Huddleston also expressed opposition to bilingual education and commented on how bilingual education serves as a tool of oppression:

"Bilingual education has gradually lost its role as a transitional way of teaching English and now mandates a bicultural component…The unfortunate result is that thousands of immigrant and nonimmigrant children are languishing in near-permanent bilingual-bicultural programs, kept in a state of prolonged confused, suspended between two worlds and not understanding what is expected of them. They and their parents are given false hopes that their cultural traditions can be fully maintained in this country and the mastery of English is not so important, after all" (Speaking for English as the Official Language: A U.S. Senator Explains, 241).

Both Rodriguez and Huddleston offer criticisms that bring light to how tools of oppression and tools of liberation are derived from each other and that enacting reforms in the case of bilingual education are counterproductive to bringing about equality and liberation through the education system. The debate over the implementation of affirmative action also seeks to evaluate the role of education as an oppressor and a liberator. Affirmative action rose out of several of the movements of the 1950s and 1960s, especially the Civil Rights Movement and the second wave Women's Movement. A main goal of the Civil Rights Movement was to provide equal education to black students since so many had been denied a proper education due to de facto and de jure segregation in the education system.

While affirmative action mainly looked to address inequalities for blacks, the second wave Women's Movement sought to have more universities open academic opportunities to women who had been denied in the past based on their gender. Both movements saw the education system as an oppressor to these groups because it excluded them from opportunities. For those fighting for equal rights, affirmative action was a method that could help reduce the disparity in education between white males and underrepresented groups. Affirmative action was implemented as a tool to help liberate minorities since both of these movements saw how important education was in garnering social and economic equality. The policy directly aimed to institute reform by specifically increasing the number of minorities, namely ethnic minorities and women, in the educational and occupational system and give opportunities to individuals who had previously been denied (Steinberg, 165).

While affirmative action was implemented as a way to bring about reform for minorities, the success of these reforms is what has become the subject of debate. There is statistical data that shows that affirmative action has produced significant results, especially in the job market: "Contrary to the claims of its critics…affirmative actions has produced very significant results. Studies have found that companies subject to [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforced laws against occupational discrimination,] requirements have raised the level of black employment far more than companies not under EEOC scrutiny" (Steinberg, 167).

However, these significant results are also accompanied by the criticisms that emphasize the failures of affirmative action. Stephen Steinberg argues that affirmative action has taken on an attitude of "preference" instead of "outreach," specifically that universities and employers are granting opportunities to minorities based on their race instead of making an effort to reach out to underrepresented groups (Steinberg, 165). Additionally, critics of affirmative action detail the social failures. Instead of addressing the issue of inequality, critics say affirmative action reinforces de facto inequality. The notion of "preference" in affirmative action can greatly undermine "the legitimacy of black achievements by making them look like gifts from the Government" and arouse "paroxysms of self-doubt among its recipients and reinforces the white belief in the inferiority of blacks" (Steinberg, 168).

Richard Rodriguez offers a different criticism of affirmative action. He argues that not all people of the same race are victimized equally and that affirmative action does not help individuals victimized the most, specifically impoverished racial minorities (Rodriguez, 155). Instead, he contends that affirmative action in education only benefits middle and upper-class minorities that are no more socially disadvantaged than white students and that lower-class minorities that have felt the most effects from racial discrimination, that desperately need the assistance, are excluded or overlooked (Rodriguez, 157).

Rodriguez also emphasizes that minority students who should be benefiting from affirmative action encounter more barriers even after they are accepted into school. Many minority students often cannot keep up with the curriculum due to their lack of a proper schooling before college and there is little or no internal academic assistance to help them overcome this deficiency (Rodriguez, 166). Overall, affirmative action in education has had statistical and numerical success, but critics argue that major failures of the policy, especially the social and implementation failures, have limited, and even outweighed, the impact of the intended reforms.

Education clearly plays a major role throughout the second wave Women's Movement, the Student Protest Movement, and the debate over bilingual education and affirmative action. In each movement education is seen as a tool of oppression that needs to be reformed in order to liberate those who have been denied equality. Each movement varies in their proposed educational reforms and their success in accomplishing them, which ranges from passing legislation that bans gender discrimination in education in the case of the Women's Movement to being criticized for fostering more feelings of racial inferiority in the case of affirmative action. Despite these differences in proposed reforms and the success of those reforms, the emphasis on education each movement put forth gives additional insight into how we can assess and overcome educational barriers that still exist well beyond the 1960s and 1970s.

Sources:

Friedan, Betty. "The Feminine Mystique." 1963

Isserman, Maurice & Michael Kazin. "The Contradictory Legacy of the Sixties."

Rodriguez, Richard. "The Hunger of Memory." 1982

Kunen, James. "The Strawberry Statement." 1968

Steinberg, Stephen. "Occupational Apartheid and the Origins of Affirmative Action." 1995