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By Root 880 0

When Wanda Hill (no relation) of Shawnee, Oklahoma, asked me to speak to the group’s annual convention, I agreed to do so in exchange for a donation to the fund. I had had a former association with the group, and despite the fact that my schedule was overdrawn, I agreed to their request. I had no idea of what the donation would be. After my speech in Reno, Nevada, to an exuberant group of two thousand women, BPW officers “passed the hat” (actually they passed red bags) for the fund. The collection netted over $11,000 for the professorship, and donations continued to come in from the organization’s members over the next few months. A reception hosted by three of my former students, Teresa Bingman, Tammy Kemp, and Sherry Wilson, and supported by my closest colleagues at the law school put the fund over the $250,000 needed for state matching funds. These students had always been a source of my pride, three talented young black women who had grown and struggled as students as I had grown and struggled my first years of teaching at the University of Oklahoma. But once again the victory of completing the fund was soured by university administration.

In anticipation of the decision by the Higher Education Regents whether to match the fund pursuant to the state matching fund program, Nancy Mergler, acting provost, suggested that I change the name of the professorship to make it more politically acceptable to that body. In a supreme act of emotional and political manipulation, Mergler suggested that the professorship be named for Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher, the first black person to be admitted to the School of Law. “The donors would agree if you suggested it.” “Though I have tremendous respect for Dr. Fisher, I could not suggest this to the donors,” I responded, concerned that I might sound too egotistical. The dishonesty of collecting money in one name and only after the completion changing the name was lost on her. Try as I did, I could not persuade her of the lack of integrity and wisdom inherent in such a move. Interestingly, Mergler did not suggest that the university begin its own initiative to endow a professorship in Fisher’s name. The administration’s refrain played once again in a willingness to compromise academic matters in order to bow to political pressure.

Raising the $250,000 in private funding was a triumph of will. Yet one more hurdle had to be met. State funding for the professorship had not been granted. The Higher Education Regents had changed their policy in December 1994 in an effort which many viewed as an attempt to avoid the issue. Prior to 1994, the Higher Education Regents reviewed applications for matching funds once the funds reached $125,000. After passing over the application for matching funds for the Hill Professorship for over a year, the board changed the amount needed to seek matching to $250,000. Once we met that goal, the university had to reapply for state matching funds.

It was by now the spring of 1995, and I had to decide whether to return to the university, where, despite the fact that the regents had acted according to stated policy, it was clear that both I and the Hill Professorship were being judged by different standards and procedures. After nearly four years of trying to function in the environment, the behind-the-scenes signals from some members of the university Board of Regents and administrators, along with some of the public debate, made me apprehensive about the prospect of returning. I heard rumors that students on campus were being told by administrators that I was at fault—that by asserting my right to maintain my tenured position, I had forced the university to take a position on the political issue of the Thomas confirmation. I had the support of many colleagues and students but I was keenly aware that they did not run the institution or establish policy.

The Faculty Senate chair, Tom Boyd, requested of President David Boren, Senator Boren in 1991, that he meet with me to discuss the future of the professorship and my concerns that it and my career and accomplishments