Debates over Third World Centers at Princeton, Brown and Harvard: Minority student activism and institutional responses in the 1960s and 1970s

On predominantly white college campuses in the 1970s, Third World Centers represented a place that was specifically focused on addressing the needs and concerns of minority students. This study examines the history behind the establishment of Third World Centers at Princeton and Brown and the debate over a Third World Center at Harvard. It is primarily a history of minority students' efforts to change these institutions. Minority groups sought changes on many fronts, e.g. in admissions, curriculum, minority hiring, university investment policy and quality of life for minorities. This is also a history that seeks to understand minority students' experiences at these institutions during this period. The Third World Center discussions reflected what students defined as specifically their needs, their position in the institutions, and their understandings of the universities' commitment to minorities.;This study also examines how the institutions responded to the diversification of its student body in the 1960s and 70s and how they responded to subsequent activism from minority students. Several forces worked to influence these institutions' responses---changing needs of new populations, new political and societal pressures with regard to the issue of race, and the institutions' histories, traditions, self-images and values. The Third World Center debates represented a point at which these universities officially institutionalized structures that manifested their understandings of the position of minorities in their institutions, their perceptions of race relations on campus and their commitments to a diverse student body.;The Third World Center debates at Princeton, Brown and Harvard culminated periods of minority student activism at these institutions. The debates at these institutions came within five years of each other, Princeton in 1971, Brown in 1976 and Harvard in 1980. The institutions resolved the debate differently, and therefore, represented different perspectives on the issue. These institutions were often each other's reference points and there was evidence that events and decisions at one influenced those at another. Presented chronologically, these three case histories provide a way to study student activism, institutional responses, and the continuing debate about Third World Centers over the period of the 1970s.