Issues In Alabama State College During The 1960's

Alabama State University president, William H. Harris attempted to right a wrong in 2010 when he said, “We don’t know how your life was changed by what happened fifty years ago, but we do know how our lives were changed by what you did. By the authority vested in me by the Board of Trustees of Alabama State University, I confer upon you the Bachelor of Liberal Arts honoris causa degree,” (Joly, 2010, p. 29). St. John Dixon, James McFadden, and Joseph Peterson were once students at Alabama State College during the 1960’s when the climate of the United States was not favorable towards individuals looking like them; that is, people of color. Dixon, McFadden, and Peterson, along with six other students, were expelled for enacting a sit-in protest

6). The students’ attorney, Fred Gray, kept shedding light on the Alabama State Board of Education’s misinformation, such as how they claimed the students were violating national law and causing riots. Dixon, the only student called as a witness, stated that the students followed the police’s instructions during their sit-in and left that day without any arrests or without any inclination that they were in trouble (Lee, 2014). One of the board members, Harry Ayers, even admitted that “he was punishing the students for breaking state segregation law-not for conduct prejudicial to the school or unbecoming a student or other reason specified in the expulsion regulation-but for a per se violation of the Whites-only rule” (Lee, 2014, p. 10). The students lost the case in trial court, for due process was felt not to be necessary since the board’s expulsion was for an attempt to keep up a moral atmosphere at the institution. Gray appealed the case to the Fifth Circuit, which overruled the previous decision, stating, “due process requires notice and some opportunity for hearing before a student at a tax-supported college is expelled for misconduct” (Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education, 1961, p. 158). This case ultimately granted students at a state institution the right to due process protection, which in the context of higher education, is giving students’

Alabama State Board of Education (1961) was a landmark case that provided college students with the right to due process in a time where individuals were fighting for civil rights. Despite varying opinions on this case, the document gave students their foundation to speak their minds freely as well as the right to a conduct process. Expulsion litigation was forever changed within the context of higher education, giving the students their right to hearings and fighting for their education. Today, Alabama State, like other universities, have conduct offices within higher education that follow a procedural process, including “(1) adjudication of student misconduct; (2) sanctions; (3) an appeals process; (4) organization misconduct; (5) summary suspension; and (6) a grievance procedure against university officials” (The Pilot, 2008-2010, p. 66-74). Even though the students were fighting against segregation in the 1960’s, “their subsequent legal victory for student’s rights paved the way for students across the country to engage in the struggle for racial justice with an unprecedented level of constitutional protection on their side” (Lee, 2014 p.