Women’s Campus

This segment on the Women's Campus introduces how gender, like race, configures the University landscape. Constructed in the 1930s north of the tower and opposite the University's formal entrance, this campus-within-a campus was comprised of women's dormitories, a women's gym, playing fields, tennis courts, and the Home Economics building. This tour stop explores the gendering of architecture and space in the history and development of the University.

First Residents of Almetris Co-op UT Austin, 1958, Dolph Briscoe Center

The Women’s Campus has a racial history as well as a gendered one with the struggle over integrated housing standing at the forefront. The first black students, graduate students who entered the university in 1950, went without campus housing as UT provided on-campus housing only to white students. By 1953, a small number of black students were allowed to reside on campus in a designated housing unit where white students, who had been given “full information,” could stay if they so chose. However, it was not until 1964 that the University desegregated its dorms.

Whitis Hall UT Austin, undated, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

The 1954 Brown decision and the banning of segregation lead to the integration of UT Austin’s undergraduate student body, but full integration of on-campus housing took years to change. As is often the case on university campuses, students took the lead in forcing residential integration at UT. In 1956, the same year the first black undergrads entered UT, the Inter-Co-op Council voted unanimously to accept black students in cooperative (not operated by the University) housing. However, no black students applied for such housing until 1958. UT limited Black men students who applied to live on campus to a few select units. These were San Jacinto Dormitory D and F (“barrack-type residences”) and an isolated wing of the Brackenridge dorms. These were “integrated” in as much as white students who chose to live in such housing as well as Latinx and Asian students lived in them as well.

Women gathering in front of Eliza Dee Hall 12th and East Avenue, Austin, undated, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

Black women were not allowed to live in University housing. They were limited to the privately run Whitis Co-op starting in 1956 and Almetris Co-op starting in 1957 across 24^th street from Carothers Dormitory on the Women’s Campus.[1] The University also helped to arrange housing for black women off campus on 12^th Street and East Avenue at the Eliza Dee Dormitory, which they shared with women from Huston-Tillotson College. Black students were not allowed to reside or even sit in the white dorms that were larger in capacity and newer. Black dorms on the other hand were recalled to be older structures and falling apart.[2]

Anti-segregation protest in Austin, circa 1960s, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

By 1960, there were protests across Austin for integration, often led by UT students. Students held sit-ins at segregated lunch counters and picketed restaurants and organized stand-ins at segregated movie theatres.[3] Protests also took place on campus. In October 1961, following other demonstrations, black students and allies, held a sit-in at Kinsolving Dorm, a designated white women’s dorm.[4] The event was peaceful but university officials asked the students to leave. According to Precursors (black alumni who were students from that era), the dean called and questioned every black student about the sit-in and their participation.[5]. Within days, the dean sent out a letter placing black students on probation whether or not they had been involved with the sit-in.[6] Two months later, frustrated and tired with the University’s inaction around desegregation and its punitive responses, students led by Sherryl Griffin (now Bozemen) ’65 filed a class action suit against the university to integrate the dorms.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at UT, 1962, UT Texas Student Publications, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

The lawsuit moved forward amidst various reactions and significant events. According to Griffin, the effort was met with well-meaning skepticism and doubt on the part of fellow students about the time and energy spent on the matter.[7] There also were inevitable critics of integration. Still the appearance of two high profile figures on the UT campus sustained the push for integration. In 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech at UT about desegregation to a 1,200-person crowd. The publicity surrounding the presence of such a figure on campus did not look good for the University.

The second event was the anticipated May 1964 commencement speech by then president Lyndon B. Johnson. It begs noting that Johnson’s eldest daughter, Lynda Bird (‘66), was an undergraduate at UT at the time who had lived in Kinsolving. UT’s continuing segregation likely did not reflect well politically on the President. The Chancellor, Harry Ransom, approached Griffin to withdraw the suit so that the University could “avoid legal battles and ‘voluntarily’ integrate the dorms on its own” as well as other university facilities, organizations, and activities. Of her co-plaintiffs, Griffin was the only remaining as a student at UT. After a meeting followed by a hand written letter of promise from Chancellor Ransom, the university announced its plan to integrate all residence halls during a Board of Regents Meeting on May 16, 1964.

UT Austin anti-segregation demonstration on the campus Main Mall. The sign, which reads, The Fire Next Time, refers to a James Baldwin book, 1963, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

What is less known is the struggles of Latinx, Asian, and Native American students to integrate the campus. The first Latinx students entered the University before 1956, but their housing and other aspects of their integration is not clear. The history of Asian, Native American and women of color on campus in general is even murkier. As of Fall 2018 Asian students make up 19% of the student body, Latinx 20.9%, and Native American 0.1%.[8]

Note: The PCL Alumni Center segment of the tour also covers the history segregated dorms.

[1] Elena Mejia, “TBT: Kingsolving “sit-ins” escalate to lawsuit amid UT’s policies of dorm segregation,” The Daily Texan, February 25, 2016, http://dailytexanonline.com/2016/02/25/tbt-kinsolving-%E2%80%98sit-ins%E2%80%99-escalate-to-lawsuit-amid-ut%E2%80%99s-policies-of-dorm-segregation

[2] Ibid; Dwonna Goldstone, Integrating the 40 Acres: The fifty-year Struggle for Racial Equality at the University of Texas (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006).

[3] “Desegregation in Austin,” Austin History Center, accessed February 18, 2019, http://www.austinlibrary.com/ahc/desegregation/index.cfm?action=decade&dc=1960s

[4] Ibid.

[5] Leila Ruiz, “UT’s first black students faced significant discrimination on the long road to integration,” The Daily Texan, April 4, 2014, http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2014/04/04/ut%E2%80%99s-first-black-students-faced-significant-discrimination-on-the-long-road-to

[6] “UT’s first black undergraduates tell their stories,” Alcalde, accessed February 18, 2019, http://alcalde.texasexes.org/precursors/

[7] “A Watershed Experience: Precursor Sherryl Griffin Bozeman Reflects on Lawsuit to Integrate UT Dorms,” Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, The University of Texas at Austin, April 14, 2016, http://diversity.utexas.edu/integration/2016/04/a-watershed-experience-precursor-sherryl-griffin-bozeman-reflects-on-lawsuit-to-integrate-ut-dorms/

[8] The official university category for Latinx is Hispanic. For stats see https://www.utexas.edu/about/facts-and-figures

Sherryl Griffin Bozeman, undated, Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, undated

For a timeline of desegregation in Austin see:

http://www.austinlibrary.com/ahc/desegregation/index.cfm?action=decade&dc=1960s

For Sherryl Griffin’s first hand account see:

“A Watershed Experience: Precursor Sherryl Griffin Bozeman Reflects on Lawsuit to Integrate UT Dorms,” Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, The University of Texas at Austin, April 14, 2016, http://diversity.utexas.edu/integration/2016/04/a-watershed-experience-precursor-sherryl-griffin-bozeman-reflects-on-lawsuit-to-integrate-ut-dorms/

Read to the stories of the Precursors, the first black students at UT and formal and informal process of desegregation:

“UT’s first black undergraduates tell their stories,” Alcalde, accessed February 18, 2019, http://alcalde.texasexes.org/precursors/

For archival information on UT Austin’s dormitories see the collection at the Briscoe Center for American History. And for more on segregation on UT Austin’s campus and residence halls watch the segment “PCL and Alumni Center.”

For a scholarly account of the integration of UT see:

Goldstone, Dwonna. Integrating the 40 Acres: The fifty-year Struggle for Racial Equality at the University of Texas. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2006.

Images appearing in 360 video:

“Almetris Co-Op Building,” Overcoming: A History of Black Integration at the University of Texas
Almetris Marsh Duren, 2011. https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/aads/_files/pdf/Duren%20Book%20%20Fall%202011.pdf

“Almetris Co-Op Location,” Tower History (UT – Moody College of Communication). http://towerhistory.org/profiles/marva-douglas-grovey/

“Anna Hiss Gym,” UT Rec Sports. https://www.utrecsports.org/public/template_files/default_site/includes-recsports.group/_centennial_embed/img/gallery/1930_gallery_4.jpg

“Jessie Andrews-[PICB 07908],” Austin History Center. http://library.austintexas.gov/ahc/education-and-religion-354069

“Jester,” The UT History Corner, 2016. https://uthistory.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/jester-center.jpg

“Mrs. Littlefield,” Food and City.
https://foodandcity.org/recipe-tracking-ingredients-charlotte-russe-1891/

Changing...

Next Stop

3. Gearing Hall

1933 architectural planning map of the University of Texas rendered by Paul Philippe Cret, with the location of the Gearing Hall tour stop marked.