Silke Hansen
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
What were you doing there while you were on-site?
Answer:
We were mostly looking for what was creating tensions in the building, looking at what kind of training we could do for staff in the school on such things as dealing with a diverse student body. Since integration had just started, they hadn't had to deal with diversity before, so they needed to do some contingency planning. They needed to consider what was the relationship between say, the school and the police. We also talked with staff and students about their concerns within the building regarding diversity issues. We tried to develop ways of responding to the concerns and resolving some of those problems that would diffuse tension and create a healthy educational setting.
Martin Walsh
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I've looked up one that might be interesting to use as a
springboard. It is one I did at UMass, the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The problem
goes back to 1992. It was a mediation case related to problems at the university.
Question:
Were you the mediator?
Answer:
Yes, I was the major one and was assisted by Larry Turner. We provided mediation as a
team.
Question:
Start from the beginning, how you heard about the case, how you gained entry, what kind of
assessment you did.
Answer:
We had done a lot of work at UMass previously. The major
previous problem was in 1986, right after the World Series with the Mets in which the Red Sox
lost in the last game. It touched off a major campus protest and ended up as racial
confrontations. We'd been out there after that to rebuild some of the relations; it had degenerated
very quickly into a racial confrontation. Many Met supporters at UMass were African Americans
from New York who were attending the school and a number of the white kids they got into
trouble with were from the Boston area.
Question:
Is this UMass in Amherst?
Answer:
Amherst. We had a history of working with UMass and UMass had a history of racial
problems. In 1992, I noticed an article in the newspaper that indicated there was a
racial incident on campus. The chancellor had met with the students. There were problems
related to one of the African American dorm residence assistants being attacked. The meeting
with the chancellor and some of the students ended up poorly and there was going to be another
meeting the following Tuesday or Wednesday--a meeting with the President of the whole
university system, the chancellor and the students.
Question:
You caught this in the Boston Globe?
Answer:
Boston Globe. So what I did was -- I think it was on a Saturday
-- call the chancellor and talked to him about what was happening. He gave me a little
background. I said, "We might be of help," and he said, "Would you?" Which is very
interesting, especially in light of the type of entry problems that we have in universities.
Most of the time universities are somewhat reluctant to
invite CRS or any federal agency, especially the Justice Department, onto their campus. I know
we've had continuing problems with one of the universities here. Harvard has really kept us at
arm's length with a lot of the problems that they've had in the law school and other racial
problems. We haven't had problems in some places, but across the country higher education is a
harder entry problem for us. I think the chancellor was interested in CRS because he had had a
contentious meeting with the students and the paper reported that there were racial problems.
That is what precipitated my call to him.
Question:
Was he the chancellor you had worked with before?
Answer:
No, he wasn't there before. The newspaper account occurred over the Columbus Day
holiday break. On the next work day I went there with Larry Turner,
Senior Conciliation Specialist in our office. I had set up a meeting with the chancellor and his
top assistant. The president of the university system was going to be meeting with the students
that night so he came about a half hour or an hour into our meeting. It was President Hooker.
The chancellor had already told him about it and he was very appreciative of our being there
because he had relations with CRS when he was president of a school in North Carolina. He had
brought along two of his trustees and one of them knew about our work in Boston and about my
work with people up there. They were very pleased with our willingness to be of assistance. So
there was no real tension related to us. It was more a matter of how do we address the problem
and what can be done. So we met with them and the person who became their primary person for
dealing with us was an assistant chancellor who was the head of student affairs.
We discussed the issues and problems. On a Saturday, the
resident assistant, who was African American, had stopped some of the white kids who were
drinking. He told them to stop drinking. One said "No," hit him, knocked him down, and beat
him up. He was kicked outside. It wasn't done by a student, but by a guest of one of the
students. This took place in September and a week later nothing much had been done. Then
there was another confrontation between that resident assistant and a student who came to
another one of the programs and there were other confrontations.
Question:
The same visitor?
Answer:
The same visitor came back the following week for another event. The resident assistant
recognized him and was trying to get him to be removed from the dormitory or be arrested. The
resident assistant apparently didn't get support for what he wanted to do. That set off a lot of
feeling that the university wasn't doing anything, so the African-American students started to
protest. There were several protests but there was no major newspaper coverage, so we really
didn't know what was taking place. As a result of the protests, the chancellor had set up the
meeting which I mentioned before that appeared in the Boston Globe that Saturday.
The students were upset, not only about that incident but the most
important issue was that they referenced a number of racial problems in the past which the
University had promised to address -- not this chancellor but others -- and the students said that
they were never carried out. There was the whole distrust element that we always talk about as a
critical community dynamic that leads to racial disorders. There was a history of the lack of
confidence in the redress system that led to the very tense situation on the campus.
Question:
Was this the background to the explosion after the baseball game?
Answer:
No, the baseball game took place in 1986. This was 1992, but that was part of the history,
though. After the baseball game, CRS helped set up a number of meetings and efforts to deal
with what the university was going to do. There were a number of promises and commitments
made at that time.
Question:
Student memory was long.
Answer:
Yes, and I think it was fostered by a number of the African-American teachers and
professors. During our outreach and assessment process
after that first meeting with the university officials, Larry Turner and I became very aware of the
racial history at the university and the racial problems in the course of our meetings with some of
the African-American teachers and professors. There was also an African American student
center. It was a place for people to learn about the history. There were also a number of
professors and doctorate students who were personally involved in some of the past racial issues
and were still on campus. It was part of their living history. There were other incidents that had
taken place. A major source of the racial conflict, as we were informed, was that a number of the
white students coming into UMass -- which is a large institution, 30,000 students, so it's a big
city -- come from small towns and rural areas and many of the African-American students come
from the cities. There was a potential clash as there was no background or relationships between
the two sets of groups. The university really had not done a good job in developing an
environment that would be effective in bringing people of different races and backgrounds
together.
Question:
Were your initial talks with chancellor and president part of your
assessment process?
Answer:
Right, to find out what had happened and how they saw the issues and problems. They
were asking for our help, but we didn't know the specifics at that time. In the back of my mind
all the time is to understand what are the issues and problems and determine whether we can get
people talking together.
Question:
What other groups did you talk to?
Answer:
The university officials who were present for that meeting in the
morning were our first contacts. During the day Larry and I started meeting with some of the
faculty as I noted above. The students were in school and not available during that time, but we
wanted to get some background. So we started meeting with some of the African-American
faculty, persons who knew about the issues and problems, and tried to get their background and
some perspective on what was taking place.
Question:
How did you know whom to talk to?
Answer:
We knew some of the players on the faculty from our previous work there. Then one
meeting turned to another and they would refer us to some of the students or resident assistants
and other persons who were quasi-faculty.
Question:
Resident assistants were...
Answer:
The resident assistants were the ones who ran the dormitories. And there were graduate
assistants.
Question:
Did you talk to the person who was in charge of the residences?
Answer:
Yes, they were there at that very first meeting in the chancellor's
office. They had a sense of what was taking place; the woman who was in charge of student life,
the vice chancellor in charge of all that area and the affirmative action officer. So we had the top
people there speaking from their perspectives. That night we went to the meeting with
the students and the president. It was raucous, tense and very loud. We just stayed in the
background, didn't really do anything in that period of time. As I recall, the President said
something about the Justice Department offering its assistance. It was really an airing, especially
by the African-American students and leaders, that the administration allowed this hostile racial
environment to take place, that they didn't do anything about protecting that resident assistant,
and the fights and their lack of concern. The chancellor had come to a meeting and when the
students were kind of belligerent, as they interpreted it, he walked out of that meeting and they
were much more upset with that. The underlying issue was that, "You
promised so many things in the past and these never had taken place. We don't believe you. We
don't trust you." And the new president said, "I'm new, not even a year here. Give me a chance.
We can change it. I'm committed," and that general type of response.
Question:
Did the African-American students have an organization?
Answer:
Yes, there was a Black Student Union and there was the umbrella organization ALANA
(African Americans, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans). While there was the umbrella
organization, the leadership really came from the Black Student Union. They were the ones who
carried the protest. They had organized the protests and they were the ones directly affected by
the recent incident. The other groups joined in supporting them. We didn't say anything at that
meeting. When it was over, Larry and I went up and identified ourselves to some of the student
leaders and indicated that we would like to sit down and talk about these problems and determine
whether we could be of help to them.
Question:
Were you invited to participate in that meeting?
Answer:
No, the U Mass administration didn't ask us to participate, but they asked us to come to the
meeting. Since we had not yet met nor spoken with the students, they
did not know that we were coming to the meeting with the President of the university system.
We were there but we weren't identified at the meeting. We arranged the meetings
afterwards with the students, exchanging telephone numbers and the like. We went back and
forth to our residences outside of Boston. I remember the chancellor said, "Do you want to stay
at my place tonight, stay here?" They were really worried about the whole matter exploding.
Question:
Did you spend that night there?
Answer:
No, but we went back and forth. It's about an hour and a half drive to our houses. We came
back on campus the next day and started a few of the meetings with the students and more with
the administration.
Martin Walsh
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Were you invited to participate in that meeting?
Answer:
No, the U Mass administration didn't ask us to participate, but they asked us to come to the
meeting. Since we had not yet met nor spoken with the students, they
did not know that we were coming to the meeting with the President of the university system.
We were there but we weren't identified at the meeting. We arranged the meetings
afterwards with the students, exchanging telephone numbers and the like. We went back and
forth to our residences outside of Boston. I remember the chancellor said, "Do you want to stay
at my place tonight, stay here?" They were really worried about the whole matter exploding.
Question:
Did you spend that night there?
Answer:
No, but we went back and forth. It's about an hour and a half drive to our houses. We came
back on campus the next day and started a few of the meetings with the students and more with
the administration.
Question:
Did the African-American students have problems in the
community outside of the campus?
Answer:
When we started meeting with them, they had already developed a listing of issues and
demands. They all related to campus issues. Nothing came up with the local police as an issue.
The campus police, yes, but not with the local police or with merchants or anything like that. It
was all on the campus. U Mass-Amherst is its own city out there.The next day we continued the
process of meeting with the students and getting an understanding of the issues.
Our first priority then was to recommend that they go
through a mediation process -- get these issues out and see what help they can get in having these
issues responded to. Their concern, of course, was, "Why do we want to go into anything with
them, what's it going to lead to?" and a lot of distrust. We said, "Well, you know the president
said that he was going to follow through on this and the chancellor has committed himself to
corrective action." I said, "We're here. It's going to be different. It will be in writing and they'll
be governed by that." So they agreed. There was some hesitation on their part, but they agreed.
Our next step was to get this into mediation quickly. I think
that was October 12, and we began that weekend and had the first mediation session on Oct. 17.
We moved on it very quickly. They already had the issues. In a lot of
the cases we are involved in, the community doesn't have the issues framed properly for
negotiations. Part of our process is getting the problems and concerns structured in an issues and
demands type of format so that they can be negotiated. In this case, it was going back and forth
to the administration -- they already had the student demands -- and whom we thought should be
at the table. At the table at the initial mediation session were the president, the
chancellor, the provost since some of the issues related to the faculty, the chief of security, the
vice-chancellor of student affairs, the director of student life and his assistants, and the director of
affirmative action. The students had their representatives from their organization, ALANA. We
met with them on how to proceed and it started to fall into place. In many ways they accepted all
of our procedures. We would be the spokespersons in the dealings with
the media. The administrators and the students would not talk to the media during the
negotiations.
Question:
Talk about those procedures.
Answer:
We wanted to make sure that they were both on the same page as to how we wanted to
proceed. We laid out how we would like to see the mediation process
proceed. We would set up the agenda; the mediators would control the mediation session. The
two parties would have their own spokespersons and those spokespersons could have any of their
other members speak so long as it was an orderly process. We indicated that these are the issues
and here is how we are going to proceed, what process we were going to use in dealing with the
issues. There were, I think, seven issues or demands. The students did not have in the listing of demands-- one of the things that we thought
was important -- the whole issue of campus security and the campus environment, which were
the subjects of the protest. They had specific demands related to the number of minority
students, recruiting of minority students and faculty, oversight of new faculty coming in, getting
rid of the name Columbus Day and changing it to a Teach-In Day.
They had these various issues but they didn't have anything related to the precipitating incident,
campus security and campus life environment. So we said that since this precipitated the racial
problems and protests, we think we need to deal with them. Larry and I added them to the
agenda.
Question:
So you put that first?
Answer:
Yes. It was the major concern to
everyone -- what was happening, what could be done in order to deal with the safety of the
students, basically students of color, and how do you prevent this stuff from occurring. Everyone
had said to us, "You have a bad environment here. The kids are isolated. Complaints come in
about how they're dealt with by the administrators from financial aid people to others at the
university. New students coming in, we have white kids coming in from farming areas who've
never dealt with blacks and they don't go through any type of a program of orientation." At that
time there were some good programs available. Harvard had an interesting one for getting new
students together. So that was the type of environment in our preliminary talks that we tried to
get the people to start looking at, even before they got into mediation. "What do you really want
to see happen here? What are you doing? What are the problems here?" One of the problems
was the university had run into fiscal problems over the last several years. As a result, the
administration had stopped a lot of the training. There were a number of training programs that
had been eliminated because of the budget crunch. The administration admitted that when we
asked them, "What are you doing here?" A number of the training programs that they wanted to
conduct were no longer being held.
Question:
You raised the issue and put it at the head of the agenda. Had you
discussed that with the parties before the first mediation session?
Answer:
Oh sure.
Question:
Talk about the preliminary meeting that led up to coming to the table.
Answer:
Before that first meeting we spent several days at U Mass going back and forth at night to
our residences. The president, the chancellor and the vice chancellor were all involved. This
was getting wide publicity, especially after we came on campus.
Question:
How so wide publicity?
Answer:
The college newspaper, the Daily, was the first media outlet that covered the events. Then
the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and the other papers covered it.
Question:
Who handled the media?
Answer:
The mediators handled the media when we got started in mediation. We would talk to the
media afterwards and indicate to them the developments. We preferred that the parties not talk
to them about any of the specifics that were taking place.
Question:
Did everybody agree?
Answer:
Oh yeah. There was pretty strong trust in us from the
administration. They were very much concerned about getting this matter settled. And the
students, this was the first time they were involved in mediation, but they pretty much followed
our recommendations because we indicated that this was the process. None of their faculty
advisors -- we'd already talked to the advisors -- came up with any changes in the process.
It was helpful that we had seen some of those faculty members and
conferred with them beforehand in our assessment process.
Martin Walsh
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
It was helpful that we had seen some of those faculty members and
conferred with them beforehand in our assessment process.
Question:
Would you say that helped them build trust?
Answer:
I think it did. The students were frustrated with the administration. I think they were
willing to try this new process of mediation. We said we wanted to end up with some written
agreements and have them put into writing. They said in the past promises made by the
administration were made in general meetings and led to nothing of substance. I said, "As part of
the process you used in the past, do you have anything in writing?" They said, "In the past, the
president or chancellor made the commitment to us." "Well, is it in writing?" "No." So there
was nothing of record that they could go back to and say, "Well they did not do this." It was all
verbal. The oral history is negative because of these unfilled promises. So, part of our strategy
was to indicate to them that there were some hope for changes this time and perhaps we could
help. With the president and the chancellor being willing to commit themselves to change the
type of process used and to follow through, and our indication to them to get it in writing, then
that could be followed through. In fact, that was one of the agreements in the end that was
written out. The chancellor was going to give a report at least once a month about progress
related to each of the agreements.
Question:
In terms of generating trust among the student leaders, what would you say were the most
significant factors that lead to their agreement to this mediation and their trust in CRS?
Answer:
I don't know of too many instances where we've had problems
getting the community to trust us. That has never been a problem or issue. We almost go in with
that type of an understanding where they feel confidence in the Justice Department. We always
tell them about and refer them to other places where this process has worked.
Question:
You mean referring them to other?
Answer:
Other situations, cases, communities, cities, or institutions where we have been involved
and what this process led to. Institutions like police departments, school systems and mayors,
and communities in general feel more confident when they know about X city we worked in that
had similar types of things and we helped them. I mean the inference is if you want to confer
with them call them. We say that to community groups also, especially if they don't know us or
our work. But most times, like at U Mass, the faculty members and the others who were behind
the scenes assisting the students, we had already talked to them and they gave them the green
light, so to speak. But I think what's more important is that the administration, from our
perspective, was sincere about this. So it was, in effect, like in many of our mediation cases
where we have to legitimize the community to the authorities. I think in this case it was
legitimizing the administration to the students as a party willing to go with this process in good
faith.
Question:
Was there any opposition to the mediation process along the
way?
Answer:
I think the only major obstacle was setting the time frame for mediation. I recall that once
we got into mediation there were mid-terms and students trying to get the time for them. I know
a couple of them were complaining. But we told them mediation would require some work, that
they had a week to get prepared. There are going to be negotiations. The students were going to
have to have their information together, their demands. We said, "Do
you know the data? Do you know how to address the issues, and what are your demands?
Someone needs to get some of the information related to the demands from the administration
beforehand." I know it was more about getting the students to commit their time. That
was part of our assuring them that this was worth their time and effort. As we went
through the mediation process -- we really had three formal sessions and the agreement -- there
was a lot of work in between formal mediation sessions. We had students working with the vice
chancellor regarding all the numbers from the student population. One of the demands was that
thirty percent of the student population be African American. We
ended up with goals in the agreement. They were worked out by the administration and the
students looking at the numbers. It was pegged to the high school student population graduating
in Massachusetts. I think they originally asked for thirty percent and the agreement was, once
they worked through the numbers, twenty percent.
Question:
These weren't caucuses. These were actually work groups?
Answer:
We had two things. We had three formal mediation sessions. Before a couple of them there
were work sessions with student representatives working with some of the administrators to get
the numbers down and decide on what could take place. What they had to do, we urged the
students and administrators, was to make sure that they really understood what they were doing.
For example, one of the demands was for an Upward Bound program
to recruit minority students to the campuses. They had just lost their federal Upward Bound
grant, so this was a big issue. The University had come up with an alternative and had gotten
money for it. Basically, it was the same numbers, but the university wanted to change some of
the people who were involved because they didn't think the Upward Bound people were as
effective in recruiting as they could have been. The administration came up with their own plan
and money, but the students wanted to look at it and meet with the people related to it to see if it
would live up to their expectations. One of the major concerns was who was going to be hired,
fired and matters like that. The students were concerned about some of the people who were
being fired, or laid off, because of the change of the program.
Question:
How many work groups were there?
Answer:
There were about two or three.
Question:
How many students were involved?
Answer:
About ten or twelve students were involved from the various organizations. The core group
was always there and in a couple meetings I think we had one or two Native Americans. But the
core group and the real driving force continued to be the Black Student Union leadership.
Question:
The mediation team for the community group was totally students
of color?
Answer:
Yeah, ALANA.
Question:
Did they have any advisors during this process, the mediation?
Answer:
No advisors, per se, at the mediation sessions. The advisors to the students never
manifested themselves directly. The administration had the president and the chancellor, vice
chancellor, director of community affirmative action, and the director of student life, and the
campus police chief.
Question:
What was the role of the general campus community? Was it involved in any way?
Answer:
No. The newspaper was covering the mediation sessions and it
would come out with periodic reports on it. So did the Globe. The information was going back
to the general campus and public. That kept the sense of getting information back to the
community. The students did a lot of reporting back. They had meetings with their constituents
after the sessions.
Question:
Did you do anything to prepare the teams or coach them before
they came to mediation?
Answer:
I think we did coaching. In one sense we really didn't have to work through the demand
process -- one thing we do in a lot of our cases. We didn't have to do that. Alerting them to what
the process was, and how it would work, yes, in both groups. And whom we thought should be
at the table. That was part of our effort. And going over the general ground rules. Other than
that it was more informal communication back and forth, of knowing in general that the students
are going to have X numbers, and these are the issues, and talking with both sides, sharing with
them just a sense of a reality framework to clarify what they were thinking so that the sessions
themselves could be productive. A lot of information had to go out to the students. We hoped
they would read all of it because the administration prepared a lot of information about what they
were doing and trying to do, what some of the past practices were, a lot of information. The
whole informal communication process was important. Also, we had good relations right from
the beginning with the student leader who represented them and was an excellent leader.
Question:
Did you ever have the need for caucuses?
Answer:
No. After each of the sessions we prepared a report on what the agreements were and got it
out so that each of them knew what was taking place. We got that out in between the meetings.
Question:
Did they ever have to take issues back to their own constituencies before coming back to
agree or disagree?
Answer:
Well, they kept saying that they would bring them back. Basically, after there was a
preliminary agreement reached, the students would go back to their constituents and review that.
The reaction from their constituencies was the first thing on the agenda for the next formal
mediation session. Informally, we kept the lines open to get reactions.
Question:
Was this the first time that students and administration worked
together on issues like this?
Answer:
The first time on racial issues. I thought that they really developed some good relations.
The next time we went out to UMass, about 3 years ago, and in that one some of the same players
were there from the administration. One of the concerns there was whether the administration
was living up to the agreements from '92. There was another major issue and there were a whole
new set of dynamics. It was graduate students and heath care, daycare and other things that did
not relate to the racial issue. Yet they built their case around the '92 agreement. They wanted us
to be the mediators to get these changes done. But it was a whole different dynamic.
Question:
Did you go out and work on that?
Answer:
Yes, I was the mediator there.
Question:
How did you justify dealing with issues that were not related to racial conflict?
Answer:
What they did was incorporate it into the ALANA agreement of 1992. That federation was
still in existence to see that the agreements were being carried out. The leaders in 1996 reported
back and they would sneak in these other issues and say, "In the meantime, this affects students
of color." There was a difference though between the students and the administration in 1992
and in 1996. In 1992 the relationship continued to be very positive. It was much easier to deal
with the issues. But in '96 it was very contentious because the administration would put on the
table the various developments and other agreements that had been reached, or the
implementation process that had taken place related to the 1992 agreement. Basically they were
carrying out what they had promised. The numbers were good and a lot of the other agreements
were there. But there were some other issues and dynamics that we didn't feel
comfortable with and we really didn't want on the table because they really were not our issues.
We said, "You should deal with them separately." Back to the case that we're talking about in
'92, the feedback to the student population was ongoing and I think it worked out well.
Question:
Were there ever any times when there were differences of opinion
within the student group?
Answer:
They didn't manifest it at the table. In '96 there were some contentiousness because of
non-racial issues. In '92 what they did, like with the Columbus Day issue, was to let the Native
Americans take the leadership, and they supported it. There
was a dynamic that took place shortly after our mediation process. Some of the Jewish students
had some problems with obtaining a site on campus. They used the same process that we had
used with the administration and they worked it out. So, I think the administration was very
pleased in '92 how this process really helped to settle things on campus and get the issues
resolved and it was the type of process they should use.
Question:
Would you speak about your decision to use team mediation in this case?
Answer:
What we often try to do is, if we can, have a team. I prefer to
have a team, especially in high profile cases when there is a lot of contentiousness and racial
conflict; if for no other reason than to have all the parties feel comfortable with the process and
with the team.
Question:
Implicit is that it's an inter-racial team?
Answer:
Yes. Inter-racial team is usually what I'm talking about. We tried to use it in a lot of work
and high profile cases, such as in the Latino community.
Question:
Do you think race tends to be a factor in generating trust in terms of the race of the
mediator?
Answer:
I think so. What we try to do is neutralize anything that could adversely affect the process.
I think it's easier to gain trust when you have a biracial team. The history of long competency of
the mediator is critical, but it's another part of the process. Sometimes you don't have the luxury
and you have to do it yourself and we do it. In the UMass case we felt that because of the high
profile and the intensity of the tensions that it would be important to us to start right away with a
bi-racial team.
Question:
Are there any other advantages aside from the biracial dimensions
of having a team rather then a single mediator?
Answer:
I think so. The team is less cost effective and with our limited resources although it's
preferable, it is often unattainable. Having a team helps the process go better. In our rides back
and forth, Larry and I would talk to one another about the dynamics of what took place, what we
saw happening, our different observations and what we could do. I think it helped each of us to
process the conflict better.
Question:
Did you often find that each of you saw different aspects of the process?
Answer:
Oh sure. You get different observations and feedback. Just in strategies of what we should
and shouldn't do two minds are better then one, especially when they both are on the same type of
level on processing information and dealing with problems.
Question:
Were there any differences among administrators that were
evident in the mediation?
Answer:
Not at the meetings, but there were differences. That was part of our working with them.
There were some things they needed to work out. Part of the problem was that they had cut back
programs. Outreach to the community, training, the numbers of faculty and the recruitment of
faculty all had been reduced. They were unable to carry through a lot of the things that were
promised to the students, because the legislature had reduced the budget of the university.
Question:
In terms of security in student life what kinds of agreements were
reached?
Answer:
A lot of it related to existing police practices. That would include hiring more police
officers of color and improving the relations between the police and students. The students had
resident assistants and one of the things that developed out of this was an action team to respond
to racial incidents on campus. The action teams would not only be composed of police but also
the persons from student life and others who were much more pro-student. There was the whole
question of orientation that had to be corrected. There was the matter of the training of the
support people, such as those who were in the bursar's office, and financial aid office and others
to prevent racially insensitive actions or statements. There was also the whole matter of the
faculty and how to address the problem that some teachers were insensitive to the racial issues in
their work. The provost came up with some different ideas of how it could be done. Included in
this discussion was the free speech issue and the type of workshops they could hold for the
faculty.
Question:
So they did decide to do some workshops
Answer:
Oh sure. They really wanted to change the campus environment. You could see it.
They did not come up with as comprehensive a program as nearby Smith College did.
We worked with Smith College, I think it was two years later, and they come up with a whole
program on diversity on their campus. One of our guys, Ed McClure,
worked in developing a really comprehensive and excellent program on diversity and how to
make it work.
Question:
Would you talk about the emotions of this conflict and how you
addressed them? Was there anger or frustration? In terms of easing emotions?
Answer:
The important thing was that meeting with the president and students. We had met
previously with the president and chancellor to discuss what they were going to say. That was
important for them to help allay some of those tensions in the sense of what he was going to say
or not say.
Question:
Did the president ask for your advice?
Answer:
Yes, we talked to him about how that meeting should go. He was sensitive to our work and
his work in racial problems at the previous university and he knew the dynamic there. And the
chancellor knew that he should not have walked out on the students the previous time. And that
some of the language youth used in angry situations are part of the venting process and it's
needed to occur. We talked about that. The most important thing was his willingness to convey
that things were going to change and that he knew the issues; that the students did not have trust
that the university was really going to carry forward and live up to whatever they would say. He
also had to say something about the legitimacy of their demands and that the university was
going to deal with them. So he set that tone. He did not increase the anger.
The venting process takes place and I think that no matter
what the person says it's going to be an angry type of confrontation that can leave people very
upset about what the university didn't do, about that incident, about that person being beaten up
and nobody doing anything and letting this guy come back on campus and nobody ever paying
attention to the students and other incidents. That was the whole process and I think it's
important for those things to take place. But they were able to go from there as they had planned
to the next step. We've seen so many of these things. If they aren't prepared to go to the next
step, then where do they go? That anger just percolates out there. It may recede over time as
people do things, but it's there beneath the surface. If anything else that takes place, another
triggering incident, that relationship is bad and then something else builds up and Boom!
Question:
Did you do anything that you haven't mentioned to help prepare
the students to be ready for that next step or were they pretty much ready? You said that they had
an agenda.
Answer:
They had an agenda but we talked with them and assured them how it was going to proceed
and the most important thing was our view of the administration's good faith. That this was
going to lead to something. What they really wanted to do, here's how they wanted to do it.
"Give them the demands and you feed back to us what they're going to do." They told us, "We
gave them our demands and we want to hear from them." It's an exchange of papers. I said, "I
don't think that's the way to really do it. We'd like to make sure that we sit down together and
talk about these issues. You explain what you want and they explain, but there is some
information that has to be exchanged. Otherwise, it's not going to work. In the past there have
just been promises. Let's go through these issues and work out what an agreement is. What is
the administration going to say about your demands?" So we talked about the complexity, the
demands, and the mediation process and how you reach an agreement so that people can live up
to it. "It's a good faith agreement and each party needs to know what's entailed in carrying this
thing forward and arriving at a solution." The students' sense of it was, give it, come back and
that's the end of it.
Question:
Several things you said suggest that this might have been a good
learning experience for all of the participants. Do you think that you helped them develop a
capacity for managing conflict in the future?
Answer:
Yes, I think so. When the newest conflict came up, the students
were able to resolve it through their own mediation process by sitting down and without any
external person. To manage that type of conflict was good for them. When we went in there in
'96, they really were talking to one another. There was a lot of trust between the students of color
and the administration. There was a new dynamic that came in, the graduate students,
but they were sort of grabbing that group and organization and using it for some of their own
interests. Undoubtedly in their minds was a real conflict as to what should be done and they
wanted to get some progress made in that area.
Question:
As part of your agreement did you develop a contingency plan to
deal with future conflicts or some kind of conflict management system?
Answer:
The most important one, I thought, was the monthly reports by
the chancellor in the campus newspaper to detail what was taking place.
Question:
Whose idea was that?
Answer:
I think in our preliminary discussions there was always a question of good faith.
Question:
Preliminary between the parties, or meeting alone with the parties?
Answer:
Meeting alone because the concern was this whole lack of confidence. They continued to
say, "We don't trust you, you've promised these things in the past." We talked with them about it
and the students met separately because I think it would have inhibited any good faith
negotiations and discussions. I don't know who put it on the table, but it became the way of
satisfying everyone that there would be progress reports. We didn't want to build ourselves into
something that we would have problems complying with.
Question:
You mean you didn't want a long term involvement?
Answer:
Yes, we didn't want to have it that we would meet with them every 6 months or every 3
months to have a review, but it would be built into the process. It was something that we like to
do, in our terminology, a se1f-enforcement mechanism, a process that we try to develop in the
agreements so that there is some accountability system.
Question:
Could you talk a little bit about how you terminated this case?
Answer:
At the last session we went over the written agreements, we had a signing of the agreement
by the administration staff and the students. So there was a written public agreement. It's a
public document. In the last session we had the final agreement and then we had a press
conference in which we spoke, and then the administration and the students. It got a real big play
in the campus newspaper.
Question:
You spoke about the media and that you set some ground rules
that during mediation you would speak for the teams. Were the representatives with you when
you met with the media? Was there any resistance to them not being able to communicate with
the media or did they anyway?
Answer:
No, the only time we had everyone together was at the last session. Other then that they let
me be the spokesperson. It was more a perfunctory type of thing. We worked out a progress
report at the table. We wouldn't share with the media any of the specifics that we had agreed to
during the interim period. It was more pablum in many ways, just to reinforce that we were
meeting and that progress was being made. We really wanted to get out the message that the
groups were very serious about these issues. The media spokesperson for the university worked
closely with us. She referred all the media people to us and the students abided by it as well.
Question:
Do you have a recollection of the approximate percentage of students of color at that time at
the university?
Answer:
I think the total number of minority students of color was about twelve per cent.
Question:
Is there anything more about this case you want to say at this point?
Answer:
I just thought the interesting part of this case was that it was a
higher education issue related to issues that keep coming up on college campuses and the process
of dealing with it, which we constantly try to urge campus administrators to do, is that if they are
going to work through these problems they really should have some type of ongoing dialogue, a
communication process around the concerns of students of color. We just saw those problems
this year down at Penn State. Right now we are organizing a region-wide conference on race and
higher education, two days dealing with a cross section of these issues.
Question:
In this case did the agreement call for continued communication
between the parties?
Answer:
No, I don't think we had to put it in there other then that ALANA was a recognized group
and I think the understanding was that if there were problems the reports would come back.
Their relationship had developed to such an extent that the student leader could pick up the
phone and talk to the chancellor. There was a real good relationship that had developed.
Question:
In the UMASS case, you had easy access and felt comfortable
enough moving onto campus. In a more typical case, would you make a phone assessment before
going on site?
Answer:
Yes.
Question:
Will you talk about that process and how you decide whom to speak to and in what order?
Answer:
A number of our cases come from the media and basically the
process we try to use is that unless there is already a major conflict taking place that involves
violence, there is usually time to get the information. Even when there
is major violence, say a civil disorder is taking place, our process is to alert the people that we are
coming and get as much information as we can from the community on the background of the
incident or conflict. I would say the critical aspect when we meet with any of the authorities is to
have more information than what is in the media or the press. It is critical at those first
meetings with the police chief or the mayor. They often say, "It was an isolated incident," or "It's
something that we are in control of," and there is either a deliberate or a non-deliberate attempt to
block and head off any further deliberations from outside. They often say, "We're handling it, we
can handle it, it's really nothing major."In my mind, that's the usual mindset of authorities. If you
have no more information than they do, there is nothing you can really go on. That's why before
we go forward to have a meeting is to get as much information as possible about the totality of
the picture. Often we are dealing with police-type cases. I remember one shooting and
there were two dynamics working. In going to the community and talking to them about the
issues we were trying to find out not only their concern about the officer who shot the person, but
to explain to them the process that was going to happen, the chances of prosecution, the trial and
the like. That was their immediate need. We can't satisfy that need other than explaining what
process they can use and what their options are for getting redress for what they think is an
unjustified shooting. We also need to meet with them to find out what else is taking place. That
is, what lends itself to our process, that is, to mediation and conciliation processes other than the
prosecution of that officer. That is the second dynamic.
Question:
Can you talk about this case? How you proceeded.
Answer:
A police officer in Herndon, Virginia shot and killed an African
American. The newspaper headlines had "Community protests shooting by officer at the 7-11
Store," or something like that. Our first thing was to look at the newspaper article.
We didn't know any of the players at all. There were a couple of
names in there, so the phone calls started as to who was dealing with this issue. There were
some ministers and there was a community group that had taken the leadership role. We talked
to them about what was happening and what they knew about the matter. I said, "We want to see
if we can be of assistance. I would like to sit down with your group to explore this thing."
It was a matter of then trying to identify who are the players. I think regarding the
community groups, it is who is moving this issue along? Often it takes awhile to do it, but that's
our first process. I remember then calling the police chief
saying I would like to sit down with him and we set up a time for that. Then it was the county
supervisors who were in charge of the police department and calling them and saying, " I would
like to sit down with you and talk about what is happening here and what happened there and the
problems." Now because of being with Justice, I think we
can get to first base. Very few if any people, I can't recall anyone, outright say, "No, I am not
going to meet with you." In those types of cases the most
difficult process issue is the reaction in the community. There is no one reaction in the
community to a shooting death. There is no one leader. How the community will process the
death is the critical issue. The first thing in meeting with the
community was to assure myself that they were the leaders dealing with the shooting issue. After
checking out the matter in a few phone calls, those identified in the media agreed to bring several
of the leaders together who were meeting about this issue. It seemed that they were some of the
people who were moving this matter. And so I sat
down with them. Of course, they are talking about being angry; they want a prosecution; and
"What can the Justice Department do about this?" and "What are you doing?" The first thing you do is to go through the spiel about here is the process. There are
several avenues. "There is the internal review process by the police to do the investigation; you
have the county attorney; you have the state attorney general who has jurisdiction; and you have
the possible investigation by the FBI and Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice." So
at least they know what their options are, what can take place and what the process is. After that,
the other option is a civil case that can take place. "While that is ongoing," I tell them, "it is
going to take some time. You can be recommending that and asking for this investigation or that
investigation and things like that. In the meantime, I want to talk about
other things that are taking place here. What is the relationship with the police department, how
is it?" That starts the ball rolling as I try to elicit from them issues, concerns that now, with the
attention given to the shooting, lend themselves to the dynamic of dealing with the problems and
concerns in the relationship between the police and the community.
Question:
You are making an assumption about what is going on in the community?
Answer:
Yes, it's based on experience, but it is also important for CRS to
try to determine whether -- it's part of the assessment process - there is a hook for us? What is
the dynamic there? If in those meetings, the community leaders said, "No, we're great; the police
are doing this; we have no problems, etc." than we would not proceed further. But we know
from our background and all the data about communities of color, especially in the
African-American community, that the general relationship between police departments and
minority communities is not good. There is a lack of trust, a lack of response, access, and it's
even worse between the youth and police. So protest activity
by itself can lead to a lot of frustration and anger and that can lead to nothing. But, if directed, it
might lead to getting at some of the issues and problems that are affecting the relationship
between the police and community. It can be a springboard to doing something positive. The
two things that have to be taken care of from our perspective, as I see it is, first, we need to know
what can be done about the specific shooting itself and the redress systems for the shooting. So
that was the first thing. We've got to clarify that and put it into perspective. It gives them a sense
of direction to follow if they want to and it puts that aside because we really can't do anything
about the investigation or prosecution. Then it gets into analyzing and assessing what else is
taking place in that community that, with the attention given to this, that maybe we can help both
the police and the community to deal with it. Anger is there. So what we are trying to do is get
that tension directed into some effective type of response. That's the
process of talking with community leaders. In that information gathering they start talking about
some of the problems, issues and concerns. After that meeting I had a meeting with the chief
coming up and the superintendent and country supervisor. So I got enough information there and
said to the community leaders, "Well, in general would you like to pursue this and deal with
some of these problems if we can get the chief and the county authorities to address some of
these issues?" And they said, "Yes." So I went back and met with the chief.
Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
So, we met with the tribes, and it
was really difficult just to get consensus among the tribes; there was a lot of distrust. We knew
that we had the basic common ground of reburial. I think that whenever I conduct mediation I'm
always asking myself, "Is there enough in common interest to balance it off the differences on the
issues?" Common ground was the sacredness of the remains, and the need for the ancestors to
return to Mother Earth. So we kind of leveraged that idea throughout the mediation process. "If
you guys don't come to consensus, then what's going to happen to the remains? They're going to
stay there. We need to figure out what you've got to do. Something's got to give here." We
constantly leveraged the common ground against the different tribal
interests.
Question:
The alert came to you originally from this woman, or one of the
Native American Commission?
Answer:
I knew the woman, I knew the issue, but I think she had also been contacted by the Native
American Heritage Commission.
Question:
How did you know the issue?
Answer:
I had worked with her on some other cases, and she had alerted me that she was in touch
with the institution, and that she was going to see what she could do to get those remains
returned. So I knew of the issue, but I had not initially opened a case. At the same time, the
institution had contacted the Native American Heritage Commission and requested its assistance.
And in our discussions, we had learned that the two parties had contacted different people.
Question:
By "our discussions," you mean your discussions with whom?
Answer:
My discussions with one of the tribal members, and then Larry's
discussions with the institution. Since we had worked closely together anyway, we shared
information and found that they were talking to different people about the same issue. That's
when I decided to do this jointly with the Native American Heritage Commission, mainly Larry
Myers, the executive director. So we met with the institution to confirm where they
were coming from and what their bottom line was. We subsequently met with the tribelets of the
tribe to begin to identify their representatives of spokespersons.
Question:
How did you identify the parties?
Answer:
We went to each of the families over a period of months.
Question:
You define a family as?
Answer:
All the stakeholders that we could find. The Native American Heritage Commission keeps
a list of most-likely descendents to any geographic area. Through a
list of people that Larry had provided we went down that list and worked with those families who
likely had relationships to the remains. Later, we met with leaders of those families, and
eventually brought the leaders of those families to one large gathering of the tribe.
Question:
Over what period of time?
Answer:
I would say that it took at least a two and one half months. We had at least 10 meetings.
You always have a lot of hits-and-misses - people don't show up for meetings, so you have to go
back... we were driving all the way out to these rural areas and meeting with people, only to find
that the right leaders weren't there. So we'd have to come back and meet again. It was
an exhausting pre-mediation process.
Question:
I'm curious about the assessment.
Answer:
When you say "assessment," I think we knew where we were going pretty early, because we
had the basic contacts between the leader of one of the tribelets and the institution, and the
willingness of the institution to mediate. So we knew where we were going; we almost
immediately turned the assessment into the pre-mediation, because we knew that we already had
consensus that they're going to be mediation.
Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I'm curious about the assessment.
Answer:
When you say "assessment," I think we knew where we were going pretty early, because we
had the basic contacts between the leader of one of the tribelets and the institution, and the
willingness of the institution to mediate. So we knew where we were going; we almost
immediately turned the assessment into the pre-mediation, because we knew that we already had
consensus that they're going to be mediation.
Question:
You were confident you knew the player, the parties?
Answer:
We were confident that we knew how to get to the players. We
knew that we had a list of most-likely descendents, and that always leads to more descendents,
but we had enough of the contacts to track down the key leaders. And they would come because
of the common ground and the interest in the number of remains. We knew this case
would be spiritual to Native Americans and that there was a lot of interest in what would happen
with the remains.
Question:
You could set your goals pretty early in this case?
Answer:
Yes, we were pretty confident.
Question:
What were those goals?
Answer:
Those goals were to sit down with the institution and figure out under what conditions and
circumstances the institution and the Ohlone tribe could agree to return and rebury the Native
American remains. We
had a list of issues that we anticipated the Native Americans would ask, and a couple of things
that had already come up. One, they wanted all of the remains. They wanted them to be buried
in a certain location, and they wanted that location to be concealed. Two, they wanted to identify
any of the artifacts that were related to what they called funerary objects to be returned with those
remains, and to be tracked, and to go through and contact the professors to see whether anybody
had, unintentionally or intentionally, borrowed any of the artifacts. So those were some of the
types of demands or requests -- that would be brought to the table for discussions.
So, what I normally do is, we get a list of those issues that
the complainant has, and in this case we would consider the Ohlone People the complainant. We
shared that list with the institution, and said, "Is they're anything that is not negotiable on their
list of issues and do you have any additions to make?" There was an additional issue that the
institution made because some 200 remains were not available because they were on loan to
another institution. They had loaned them for study by another school, which they didn't
remember until later. At some point later we got consensus and agreement on a list which served
as the agenda when we came to the table. We structured this so that
we had five to six representatives for the Ohlone and three from the Institution. All of the
families had a representative at the table. But they wanted their elders there, because they have
to consult with their elders on spiritual matters. This is a typical situation in a lot of Native
American cases -- the elders make the calls, but they don't come to the table; they send the young
people to represent them. So we had to negotiate some of the logistics in terms of the Institution
understanding why the representatives would be going to their elders to have caucuses to allow
for clearance of some of the issues as we go through the mediation process. That was all
concurred in by the parties before we came to the table.
Question:
Was there anything specific that you did to build your credibility
with the parties?
Answer:
I always insist on meeting the parties face-to-face. When I make
my initial contacts, I try to minimize the amount of talking I do on the phone, and I try to explain
what CRS is, what our intentions are, and that I am a mediator and will attempt to resolve
whatever conflicts are out there. "Could I see you or meet
with you at any point?" I ask that right away, because I think they can't begin to build trust until
they see you, they get a sense of what you're about, and I've always found that to be surprisingly
easy for me, I don't know why. Sitting down with people, and sometimes being very factual and
explaining what we're trying to accomplish as a service to them and of course at no cost to them.
I think it is always a kind of, "Why not take the risk?" I think it is a marketing process, but it
really takes a face-to-face marketing opportunity, and it's a service that will hopefully accomplish
their objectives.
Question:
Does it always work?
Answer:
Not always, but most of the time it works. I always try to draw the biggest picture I can
when I'm talking to people about a complaint or when they are grieving an issue, because I want
the parties to have a lot of options, and I think it's always good to help them to look at what
options they have, and to see mediation as one of those options. They have control of the time
and their participation -- all of those factors that mediation typically allows a party to control.
When they see mediation juxtaposed to the other options, often times they choose to try
mediation. I'm going to change the subject.
Question:
Go ahead. We can come back to this case.
Answer:
Okay, when I do a typical excessive-use-of-force case, where
somebody's been killed, and there's some level of shock, I always talk to them about, "Let's look
at where we are. When the incident occurred, you went through shock. Then you go through
denial, certainly you wished it didn't happen and you want it to go away. But then you get to the
point of anger, disappointment. And then you begin to get to the point of blame and you start
blaming sometimes yourself and others, who's at fault? You can either stay there -- some people
stay there for a long time -- that blame period is what I consider the marching period, when
groups go marching and demonstrating and are venting anger. Later you reach a point of
acceptance. You accept that it took place: "I know it took place, but how do I deal with it?"
Then you can go to resolution and reconciliation. So, when you
explain to people what the process is and they can find themselves, and I usually say, "Look, you
may want to demonstrate. You may want to march, and we can do that as long as you want to
and we'll work with you on that. But until you get to some type of resolution, when you're going
to stop and really work through the issues, you're not going to be able to put this behind you."
This is how I try to give them a sequence and a picture of a process. I do this for other kinds of
cases as well as. The parties have the option, whether to pursue a civil suit or mediation, or to
continuing to march, but "here's where you are, here's the options that you have, and this is what I
am offering you. You can proceed with all your legal options, you'll need to get a lawyer, you'll
need to file a suit, you'll need to see what you can find pro bona, you can file a complaint, you
can go through EEO; every scenario of any kind of complaint has a number of options and I want
you to be in control, and I want you to understand what I can offer you as a federal mediator."
Question:
People have the patience to listen to this if they're angry or
enraged?
Answer:
By the time I get to the meetings with people, the anger is there, but they want to know
what their options are. They're interested in that. Their anger needs to get focused on something
constructive at some point, and I think they realize that. I think they appreciate it if you can give
them that big picture. That's the way I approach a lot of cases. So in the case with the
institution, we talked about all of the options. Because the institution had already consented to
go to mediation, we knew where we were going, so it wasn't hard to get them to sit down and
really work with us. When we actually went to the table, we had an agreement on the full
agenda, and as we went through the list of issues, it went fairly smoothly because I think we
knew where we were going and we knew the parties common ground and interest and we knew
that the institution was willing to concede the remains to the tribe. They had learned about the
spiritual need for Native Americans and recognize that they did all the testing and learning they
could with these remains. They had no real, viable use for the remains. The pictures they had
taken and the pre-measurements and all of the analysis they had was documented in a way that
they didn't have to hold these remains to teach students in the future. So they were comfortable.
But we reached an impasse on the issue of the remains that
were on loan to another institution for a period of time. The Native Americans, at that point,
said, "We want those remains to be buried with the other remains at this time. We've agreed to a
time, a date, a location, and we have a ceremony to do. What are we going to do with these
remains on loan? They need to be brought back." The institution was caught, because they had
made a commitment to another institution. We couldn't get the parties to agree on a delay of the
whole process, because the Native Americans were anxious to get the remains into the ground to
evolve its natural process. The institution was caught because it couldn't get the remains back
without violating its commitment. They had talked about talking to the other institution to see if
they could get the remains returned earlier, but that was impossible because the other institution
had not finished doing important testing. I think, in all honesty, the representative of the first
institution made a viable effort to try to get the remains and expressed that to the Native
Americans. So we were stuck in this impasse. We couldn't figure out how we could get the
Native Americans to allow the institution to have an extension. It looked like we had to go that
way because the institution that had borrowed them had not finished what they needed to do and
had begged the institution to allow them to do that. And in good faith, the first institution said,
"We cannot violate that commitment." We were there for hours. We
looked at all the options we could come up with. We caucused and we came back. We took
lunch and came back to the table, but there was no movement. We did everything we could to
see whether we could refresh and energize the parties to back and figure out some acceptable
option. It was about the third or fourth caucus when one of the
representatives came up to me and said, "I think I have the way." She was the spokesperson of
one of the tribes. I asked her what was it? "They have to tell us." "Tell you what?" I asked.
'They have to say, 'That's the way it is, you can't have them. That's the only way. You can't have
the remains until we are done in two months.' They have to tell us."
Question:
Who was at that session?
Answer:
It was a caucus. We had taken a break and she had come and asked to caucus with Larry
Myers and myself.
Question:
She wanted to talk to you away from the group."
Answer:
Yes.
Question:
Was she representing the group?
Answer:
She was a strong enough leader and we knew she had the confidence of most of the group.
There was no doubt about it that whatever she said was going to go. She had that kind of
influence. It was kind of interesting because we went to the institution and told them they had to
say, "This is a non-negotiable! You have to tell them that those remains are not going to be
available, absolutely, and that's the only way this is going to work. And the Dean of the
Department said, "What?" He didn't want to take a hard position and feel like the institution was
being dogmatic. They had been very open and cooperative and all of a sudden now they are
going to say, "No...this is absolute...you can't have them for two months, and until this takes
place, they're just not available." They were very reluctant to do that, but Institution
representatives finally realized what the message was. The real message behind the option was
that the Native Americans did not want to betray their ancestors. If they gave permission for the
University to hold the remains any longer then they would have violated the trust of their elders
and the spirits of their ancestors. But if they are told by the institution to wait two months, then it
wasn't on them. It was the ownership of the betrayal that was important to them, and that was the
only way we got through that impasse. It came through a caucus...and nobody really wanted to
do it, but it was the only way. So, there was an agreement that there would be an extension.
Those are the subtle things that made this case very memorable for me, because after
all that impasse, sometimes it's just the little subtle, intimate way you say things, is sometimes
more important that the whole issue. That one has always left a lesson for me. It was a special
case.
Question:
Who put the agenda together? Was that a one shot mediation?
Answer:
I think that was a two shot...two days, and they were long sessions, like 4 hours.
Question:
Two consecutive days?
Answer:
Yes, I believe so.
Question:
Who put the agenda together for the meeting?
Answer:
I put the agenda together and we did that through the earlier consensus process with the
complaints. We listed all of those issues and shared it with the university and they looked at
those issues and added issues. Even after we went to the table, other issues subsequently came
up. So it wasn't on our initial agenda as I recall. But the agenda was agreed upon prior to
entering mediation.
Question:
Did you work with either party before mediation to prepare
them for the table?
Answer:
Yes, Larry Myers and I met with the parties several times to go
over the issues, to insure consensus by the Ohlone People and to confirm the parties agreement to
cooperate and select spokespersons of their respective teams. I had
worked with the Ohlone on a number of other cases with other cities. So I was very familiar with
many of the parties. And in the consensus building, we outlined exactly
what worked, what the process was, and what we hoped to accomplish, and shared this with the
institution to meet with them, and assess their sincerity to try to meet some agreement on these
issues. I think the institution was very sophisticated and supportive of what we were trying to
accomplish in extensive meetings to prepare the Ohlone for mediation.
Question:
Was there any media coverage of this?
Answer:
There was no media coverage of this that I know of. But I actually saw a picture...there
was a gentleman named White Owl who came in to bless the mediation process. He came in and
chanted a blessing and took a picture. And I didn't think anything of it...but what we didn't know
was that he was writing a book.
Question:
And no one knew he was writing a book?
Answer:
I didn't know he was writing a book. I don't think he said anything about it. But one day a
friend of mine said, "Steve I saw your picture in this book." He had written a story about Native
Americans' spirits and beliefs and in it there is a picture of myself and the Dean of the
Anthropology Department, and Larry Myers and a caption saying, "this is a mediation case
dealing with remains." So it's not as though it was not made public, but we did not have a press
conference at that particular time.
Question:
You had an impasse at one point in
this mediation. Tell us about how you respond to impasses.
Answer:
Well, when they come up and we are not expecting it, we all
look at each other and everybody's face is saying, "This is not working. We're not making any
progress here. Why is this issue so difficult?" We keep attempting to see what other options we
can come up with. Typically when you reach an impasse, and there's
no give and take by either party, we like to call a caucus and see if we can get any more
information as to what are the particulars and what are the positions and concerns of either party
with regards to the issue we are stuck on. In the caucus, I try to clarify where people are on the
issues, and why. For the institution we knew that they had made a commitment and
they made every effort to alter that commitment, but they could not. It was just something they
didn't have control of. At least that was their sense of it. From the Ohlone's position, there was
no way that those remains should stay in the Institutions and unburied. "They are disrespecting
our people, and our people are yearning to be turned to the soil. They've had them long enough."
Question:
This was told to you in caucus?
Answer:
Yes.
Question:
Was it told to them at the table?
Answer:
I think it was shared somewhat. But those are the kinds of things
they were saying, "Will you relay that to them? They need to understand why you feel this way.
Will you relate it to them?" Actually trying to bridge what they would share with us in caucus,
we would try to say, "Okay, we understand your point, why didn't you say that at the table? Let's
bring that to the table and see if that will help us, so we're able to get more information and get
an agreement that more information should be shared as to why you feel the way you do."
Question:
They were reluctant originally to share at the table?
Answer:
They did not share all that information at the table.
Question:
Is that typical in the mediations you do, that the parties hold back?
Answer:
I think it depends. With the Native Americans, there is a subtle respect at the table that
they show differently in the caucuses. And sometimes you need to flush it out or get permission
to speak for them at the table to bring out some of those more intimate details, because I think
there is a pride of their behavior with respect to the other party. So, for those reasons, we had to
work a little differently. In other cases where you reach impasse -- Vermont McKinney (CRS
mediator) and I had a real interesting case. Do you want to finish this one? Cause you can have
me jumping all over the place.
Question:
Go ahead, we can come back.
Answer:
Okay, Vermont McKinney and I had an interesting case where
we were asked by a U.S. Attorney to go into a situation where three Native Americans were
killed by members of a town police department on the borders of a reservation. Some Native
Americans would go into the town and they would get drunk and maybe throw a bottle or
something and it would escalate to the point where they would end up being killed. The police
had killed three Native Americans within six months. So the tribal police said, "Look, don't
touch our people. If you feel they've done something wrong and you're going to arrest them, call
us and we'll take care of our own people." And the townspeople said, "No way. They're in our
jurisdiction, they're ours." Then the tribal police said, "You do it again, and we'll be there, and
then we've got a problem." So that's when the U.S. Attorney says, "Community Relations
Service, we think we could use a mediator." So we sent in, Ada Montare, a former CRS
Conciliation Specialist. She was doing her assessment, and working with the parties, and she
happened to be parked out in front of a store on a major highway. She was getting into her car,
and a car hit her. She was hospitalized with a broken pelvis. She was taken by helicopter to San
Bernadino, and eventually she was brought up to San Francisco where she recuperated from her
injury. It was decided by the Regional Director that we better send two people in there.
Vermont and I went in and met
with the Chief of Police for the town. We met with the tribal police, we met with the tribal
council and we met with city council. When we met with the Chief,
he had an M-16 rifle in back of his desk. He said, "Oh, you send two guys this time. Who's the
bodyguard of who?" And we're concerned about why is this guy making these kinds of
comments? It was kind of demeaning. We knew we might have problem here. We
did our assessment and tried to figure it out. We could never get the chief of police together with the tribal
chief. It would just be one accusation after another. It was very tense at that level. But we
decided we could bring the town council representatives and the tribal council representatives
together. Vermont was really taking the lead on this case. It was decided that we get the two
councils together to sit in on the mediation. In this case, we hit another impasse. We
met several times with the parties prior to convening mediation. There were just a lot of issues in
this particular case. We knew what the issues were, and we knew what the concerns of the
Native Americans were. We conveyed that we were given permission to relay to the town
council representatives. The town council reviewed the proposed issues and were willing to
discuss them, so we started setting up our mediation schedule.
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