Goals and Values: Leading Berkeley

Let's look at affirmative action at Berkeley. Give us insight here into what was motivating you and what were the skills that you brought to bear in dealing with this. In an issue like affirmative action, your constituencies weren't on board, and there was conflict with different constituencies and their relation to different goals. So I would imagine that on the one hand, one of your problems was to fundraise, to find new sources of money. On the other was affirmative action. Did these two goals conflict?

Well, they eventually did, but it was after I left.

I see.

No, I took the position with givers -- most of whom, or practically all of whom are Caucasian and whose grandchildren, often, because that was their age, were finding it very tough to get into Cal -- that what the University was doing was what it always did: it was trying to be a place where people who were deprived economically, and for other reasons, could get a fair shake with respect to the credential and the educational process. It's very hard to disagree with that. Now, one basic condition that had changed is that when I started as vice chancellor in 1974, we were taking practically every eligible kid who wanted to come to Berkeley. And we were just making our quota. Under those circumstances, this argument's an easy one. But by the middle of the eighties when I was making this argument, people were being turned away. So there was a shortage of opportunity.

There were four times as many applicants when you were Chancellor.

Yes, the number of applicants went up immensely. But the idea of equality and inclusiveness [is important at Berkeley], and this place, unlike some of its competitors, was in the business of giving a pathway up for people who had been deprived. It's so much the warp and woof of Berkeley that it dealt effectively [with the concerns] of people making contributions, with a lot of the people with whom I spoke. It was [a question of] finding a way to argue that this was true, even though upsetting under the circumstances. So [Berkeley's background] was really quite helpful.

You quoted from the Faculty Senate in one of your speeches, and the Senate had said in the nineties that Berkeley must have a larger vision of its mission. "This mission must include taking a leadership role in the construction of a genuinely pluralistic environment in which the best students from all segments of California's diverse population can meet and debate in an atmosphere of enlightenment and commitment." Another goal on your agenda was to reflect the diversity that demographers were telling was becoming a social reality in California.

Oh, absolutely. For a number of reasons. Again, in terms of one's own sense of what is the right kind of an institution for the United States, but also in sense of 20 years from now. I mean, I really would hope that a good deal of the leadership in California comes from people who were forced to mix with one another. Or contend or do something other than looking at a distance from one another. I think we're only beginning to see this now. For example, folks of Hispanic background are beginning to become politically very important in this state in the legislature. Those were the kinds of things that I foresaw in terms of the position that I took then.

I must say, it's an issue that's very difficult. It's not a resolvable issue. People who believe in individualism to a large degree -- who are not anti-communitarian, but that's not what sends them; it's individual achievement and individual effort -- and especially people who came from backgrounds in which members of their group were discriminated against are enormously sensitive about this. Whether or not they came from that background, it takes a commitment to do some sacrifice in relationship to communitarian goals. But it's very tough. I mean, you get people on this end of the spectrum and people on this, and it's very hard to bring them together.

One of your first articles, a very important article as a young faculty member, "Innovative Land Regulation and Comprehensive Planning," was about land use and finding ways that the law could respond to new values and concerns about the environment. In it, you emphasize both in what you were finding in the law, and, I think, in terms of your values, rationality, equality, and devising ways that organizations could respond to change.

Yes.

In this case of affirmative action, you are applying that set of norms to a different case. Is that fair?

Yes, I think it is fair. I had not thought about it that way. I really had put them in different capsules of time. But, yes, I think that one's basic values pretty much steer you, regardless of time and issue.

To compare it to an entirely different subject, one of your important tasks was to reorganize the biological sciences. [In both cases] there's a lot of convincing people within the organization that they have to re-think their ways of doing things.

Speaking about biology ...

Biology, but also in terms of affirmative action.

Yes.

In both cases, you have to draw on your skills as a lawyer to explain, to convince, to press the flesh, whatever, to get people to say, "Oh, yeah! I see what you're saying." Or at least, "I'll think about it."

I think they're distinguishable with regard to their accomplishment. On affirmative action, it really does take a perception of a proper morality, in the end. And you push and a lot of people hadn't given that so much [thought]. It fits within what you said.

The biological revolution at Berkeley didn't have very much to do with morality. What it had to do with was our own sense of self-worth, and everybody agreed with that. We had taking a terrible slide in the ratings in the biological sciences, where we had always been quite prominent. But in the 1980s, we had really taken it in the chin. We had only one or two departments that were in the top ten anymore. We had nineteen biology departments at Berkeley at that time. Actually, maybe it was the seventies. I think it was the seventies, actually. But it was clear we had to do something. It was clear that we had antiquated facilities, and we just simply had to upgrade those. After that, it was Rod Park and Dan Koshland, more than me, [who] concluded we had to have the most prestigious of outside reviewers come in and take a look at us in general and tell us what was wrong with us in order to bring us along. But the basic value was that we had to be up in top of the ratings and that biology was the science of tomorrow.

[Of course], there were going to be people who got hurt, in the sense that they lost authority that they previously had. There was going to be a melding of a whole bunch of departments. We very wisely concluded that our real consultative group here was going to be the 35- to 45-year-olds on the various biology faculties. And then we worked out a strategy. But the end result, everybody agreed with. So it was an issue of quite how you get there. It was such a rational plan to get there. Now the hard things, in a funny way, were, first of all, to devise that plan. That was Park and Koshland's job. Secondly, was to convince the legislature. That was mine. And thirdly was to raise money in general, and that was more mine. But it was a real team effort with respect to its accomplishment.

You're saying that excellence, continuing excellence, renewed excellence, required new processes and new institutional forms.

That's true. But everybody agreed on the goal.

I see, I see. It was just how you get from here to there.

That's right.

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