1977. Brent Henze
necessary to rehearse how thoroughly Watergate dissipated political power and hope in government in the mid-1970s. That it seems impossible today to recall a single achievement of the Gerald Ford administration—or even to remember anything that happened during the Ford administration, except for the pardon of Nixon—speaks to the sense of political ennui that followed Nixon’s disgrace, the loss of the war in Vietnam, and the erosion of confidence in 1960s-style national legislation. That Jimmy Carter could defeat Ford in the 1976 election largely on the slogan “I will never lie to the American people” testifies to how demoralized the electorate had become and how character seemed more important than the possibility of social progress through legislative achievement. When he took up the Presidency in 1977, Carter held to a high moral tone, committed himself to human rights initiatives around the world, and achieved a successful peace initiative in the Middle East; but he nevertheless contributed to the crisis in leadership by being unable to act effectively to reverse the nation’s serious economic problems and energy shortages. Though unemployment (7.4 percent when Carter took office in January) dropped somewhat during the Carter years, double-digit inflation continued to plague the nation, and the energy predicament seemed so serious and so intractable that in April 1977 the new President created the Department of Energy and declared the situation to be “the moral equivalent of war” and “the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetime” (418). Carter seemed impotent when he could not get an energy bill through Congress in the summer of 1977 and when, to solve the problem, he urged people to lower thermostats and wear sweaters.
The biggest domestic issues outside the economy and energy seemed to be women’s rights and civil rights, but there were setbacks and disappointments in that area too. Over 14,000 women attended the National Women’s Conference in Houston in the fall of 1977, but the event was at least as acrimonious as it was invigorating (the abortion issue was particularly divisive); and opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment was now gaining so much support—Phyllis Schlafly was an especially vigorous opponent—that the amendment would ultimately be defeated two years later. In March 1977, an unprecedented number of Americans—probably more than 100,000,000—tuned into the ABC television mini-series Roots: The Saga of an American Family, a version of Alex Haley’s best-selling (and Pultizer-winning) book of the previous year. But despite the broad appeal of a mini-series devoted to slavery and civil rights, affirmative action programs designed to benefit women and minorities according to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were coming under serious attack. (Indeed, it could be argued that the heroic bootstrap efforts depicted in Roots made an implicit and ironic argument against the need for affirmative action.) The most celebrated affront to affirmative action was mounted in the case of Alan Bakke, who sued after his application to medical school at the University of California was rejected in 1974 even as the university had been affirmatively admitting a number of minority students: by 1977, the widely publicized case had reached the Supreme Court.6 In a not unrelated case, four families living in public housing in Ann Arbor, Michigan, sued the local school district in 1977, charging that lower-class, African American children were not being afforded equal opportunity but were being placed erroneously and disproportionately in special needs classes. The case drew widespread attention, and the racialized meaning of “standard English” came to public consciousness when the plaintiff’s attorney drew upon Geneva Smitherman’s research on Black English to argue that the language needs of African American children were not being attended to in the schools. And while these controversies were playing out in the news, Anita Bryant, spokeswoman for the Florida orange juice industry, was expressing the views of many by blaming many of the nation’s ills on gay citizens and thereby compromising the movement for gay rights. That movement in many ways received its impetus from the famous Stonewall riot in New York City of June 28, 1969, and gay rights parades during the decade frequently commemorated Stonewall as they made their case for civil rights for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. After 1978, the intensity of those demonstrations intensified because in that year Harvey Milk, an openly gay San Francisco supervisor, was murdered along with the mayor of the city by a notorious bigot, Dan White.
Pennsylvania, the political and economic backdrop of Penn State, offered a microcosm of the nation’s political and economic difficulties. State House Speaker Herbert Fineman, in a local reenactment of Watergate, was convicted of obstructing justice for hampering investigations into bribery and the sale of student admissions to professional schools. Governor Milton Shapp, beset by various administrative scandals and rumors that would sweep Republican Richard Thornburgh into office in 1978, fired Commonwealth Secretary C. Dolores Tucker, the highest ranking African-American female state official, on the grounds that she had used her official position as a clearinghouse for personal speaking engagements. This move exacerbated political and racial tensions, as many Pennsylvania residents saw the dismissal of Tucker as racially motivated. Racial and political troubles intensified in Pennsylvania’s urban areas as well. In Philadelphia, second-term mayor Frank Rizzo stirred racial tensions by advocating (as early as 1976) the striking of a city charter that prohibited him from serving more than two terms as mayor. The debate around the elimination of the charter was fraught with racial divisiveness. In response to what he interpreted as attempts by black leaders to persuade black voters to reject the proposed city charter amendment, which was to appear on the 1978 ballot, Rizzo asserted that “Whites are going to vote for Rizzo” (qtd. in Featherman and Rosenberg 17). Although Rizzo claimed that his statement was merely an observation about voting habits, his words were widely interpreted as a call for bloc voting by race. In the end the proposed change to the city charter lost by a wide margin, due largely to the resistance of black voters, 96 percent of whom voted against it (2). In 1978 racial tension would express itself again when Philadelphia police, in an attempt to remove members of the African American group MOVE from their communal residence, destroyed whole city blocks in a fire; in the ensuing shootout a police officer was killed and several members of MOVE were injured.
Economically the state epitomized the economic stagnation that in 1977 was plaguing all the states in the nation’s industrial “Rustbelt.” Despite some good years for agricultural industries and an agreement with Volkswagen to establish a new plant near Pittsburgh in 1976, unemployment in Pennsylvania hovered around the 10 percent mark—or even exceeded it—in many chronically depressed areas (R. Elgin 397). Record-breaking cold in January and February of 1977 depleted natural gas supplies in Pennsylvania, forcing shutdowns at more than 300 plants and temporarily stalling the efforts of over 265,000 workers. In July heavy rains caused a dam to burst near Johnstown, and the subsequent flood killed at least 76 people and caused damage to homes and businesses in excess of $200 million. Confronted with economic problems like these and with diminishing tax revenues consequent upon them, and unable to resolve differences over its budget and necessary tax increases, the state legislature—hopelessly stalemated in the face of the crisis—left the state completely without a budget in 1977. Interstate highways and roads alike were left to rot because the state could not afford repairs. Dead animals piled up on highways and rest areas were closed; citizens began to joke that the state ought to welcome travelers at the borders with the motto “Welcome to Pennsylvania! No Facilities.” By August legislators had come up with a partial budget to pay state workers and welfare recipients, but lawmakers continued to debate funding for universities and colleges until early 1978, forcing schools and universities to cut back services and take out temporary loans to meet payrolls. Those loans in turn only compounded budgetary crises for state-funded schools and universities, several of which defaulted because they were unable to make interest payments.
Economic and political problems were only some of the difficulties facing higher education in 1977. Indeed, higher education in general was witnessing extreme instability in the middle 1970s, leading to changes that significantly altered curricula, institutional structures, and student populations. In the fifteen years before 1977, college enrollments had burgeoned, particularly among previously underrepresented groups. Pennsylvania alone witnessed a 21 percent increase in enrollments in higher education during the 1970s, with the greatest growth coming between 1973 and 1976. Widely discussed “open admissions policies” (started in 1970 at the City College of New York [CUNY]) along with federal, state, and local affirmative action policies put the highly charged issue of accommodating culturally diverse students at the center of debates in higher education.7 Enrollment for African Americans in higher education increased from 821,930 in 1974 to 960,804 in 1978; similar increases were recorded