Were you a participant in the student protest? If so, I want to hear from you.

If you participated in the Cleveland State University student protest back in 1990, please send me your name and email address to iknowstan@gmail.com. All contact information will remain confidential. Please add 'CSU Protest Participant' in the subject line. Questionnaire, focus groups, face-to-face and phone interviews will be forthcoming. Follow the project on Facebook at #CSU1990Protest. Updated (4/8/2015).



Sunday, September 11, 2016

Cleveland State University 1990 Student Protest Survey

I am currently working on completing my Cleveland State University (CSU) 1990 student protest online survey. When completed, I will send the survey out to former participants of the CSU student protest through Facebook, email, and other options. Protest participants may include CSU Students, faculty & staff, administrators, and community activists. My goal is to have the online survey completed by November and sent out by December.  The goal will be to have all surveys completed no later than May 1, 2017. Additionally, there will some face-to-face interviews conducted in 2017.





Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Pat "Ma" Washington's Retirement Party at CSU



Former Cleveland State University students (and a few others) in the picture gathered at Cleveland State University for Pat "Ma" Washington's retirement party on Friday, December 10, 2010.

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EVERYONE IN THE PICTURE WERE PARTICIPANTS IN THE 1990 STUDENT PROTEST. MANY OTHERS ATTENDED THE PARTY BUT ARE NOT IN THE PICTURE.

Monday, December 6, 2010

CSU sits within blocks of a sprawling black ghetto

The city's young urban university is at a crucial stage in its development. If it collapses under the onslaught of the Forbes machine, it may never recover.


Despite its egalitarian appeal and the fact that it has alumni at City Hall, CSU owes its curren crisis to that same body of politic - and one small detail about the school's demographics. Even though CSU sits within blocks of a sprawling black ghetto in a city that is almost half black, it remains a mostly white school.



Source: Frank Bentayou
At Cleveland State
Cleveland Magazine, September 1987


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Home now after being evacuated from the Baltimore City building due to a 5-alarm fire on The Block. Glad everyone made it out safely.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

CSU President Resigns

The president of Cleveland State University, Walter B. Waetjen, says he is resigning at the end of the next academic year more for health reasons than to escape allegations of racism at the school.

Source: Daily Standard, May 27, 1987

CSU Chief Quitting

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Walter B. Waetjen, stated “I think the charges were extremely unjustified. I think the university has an excellent record of accommodating people of all minorities.”

Source: The News Herald, May 27, 1987

CSU’s Waetjen to resign in ‘88

Jim Sweeney

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Faculty and students at Cleveland State University generally applauded President Walter B. Waetjen’s decision to retire, saying it was time for stronger leadership.

Source: The Plain Dealer, May 27, 1987

Faculty, students applaud decision

W. C. Miller

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Spending time today in DC at Busboys and Poets trying to get a little work done. What a great day to be out working on the project.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Cleveland State University Investigated

As a result of Forbes charges, CSU president Walter B. Waetjen formed a committee to study the accusations. Businessman Arnold R. Pinkney was among 12 members of the Greater Cleveland Roundtable Committee to investigate the charges of racism at Cleveland State University.

Former Mayor George V. Voinovich endorsed this committee as the first step towards reconciliation through a thorough and impartial investigation.

Source: East Side News, April 23, 1987

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I have a copy of the Greater Cleveland Roundtable's final report on “CSU Civic Committee on Race Relations” dated December 11, 1987. I will not post findings from the committe on my blog. Information regarding this report (and other findings) will be used in future publications, etc. I will try to show both sides of the issue.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Institutional Racism in Higher Education Organizations

Mark Chesler, Amanda Lewis, and James Crowfoot (2005), authors of, Challenging Racism in Higher Education, lists eight generic dimensions that can be used to describe the structures and operations of any organization and influence local policies and practices, including those affecting racial attitudes, racial relations, and racism as well as other patterns of oppression and discrimination (p. 52).

These eight dimensions includes (Chesler, Lewis and Crowfoot: 2005: 54-68):

(1) mission refers to the official and unofficial purposes of the organization, as reflected in written policy statements, informal understandings or priorities, and symbols or public images;
(2) a culture of values and beliefs permeates organizational functioning and is evident in common understandings, assumptions, or preferences regarding how people should behave – form dress and deportment to language and speech cadence – and are often embodied in symbols, traditions, and public images;
(3) power dimensions consists of its leadership composition and style and its decision-making structures and processes;
(4) membership patterns of a modern university are the demographics of its population, together with the criteria and procedures for becoming a member for participating, including admission/hiring, retention/tenure, and advancement/promotion;
(5) social climate and social relations involve the degree and quality of associations and interactions among its members;
(6) technology is the means by which it converts raw materials into finished products, whereby in higher education, the curriculum and pedagogy, including course, teaching techniques, graduation requirements, grading, and other forms of evaluation, are the means for helping entering first-year students develop into university graduates;
(7) resources are monies, goods, materials, and people that constitute the raw materials an organization transforms into finished products or services and the people and materials need to accomplish this transformation; and
(8) boundaries of the university environment are both physical and symbolic.

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I picked this book up while I was in Montreal, Canada attending the 2006 Association of Black Sociologist and American Sociological Association conferences. This is just one of the books that I will use as I look at theories on institutional racism in higher education.