Former Campus Militant Returns As Affirmative Action Director

Black Issues in Higher Education, Feb 4, 1999

SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. -- The University of Rhode Island (URI), strained by racial tension, has hired a new affirmative action director familiar with campus unrest.

Louis S. Francis Jr. was among more than a dozen Black University of Rhode Island students who barricaded themselves inside the administration building for nearly 24 hours to protest the treatment of minority students in 1971. Blocking doors with chains, chairs, and filing cabinets, the protesters refused to leave until officials listened to their concerns.

"There was an insensitivity to the growing needs of a minority population," Francis told The Providence Journal. "We felt that we were not embraced."

Francis became a law school graduate, a successful businessman, and a vice president of the Rhode Island NAACP. Now, he returns to his alma mater to once again tackle minority issues as URI's new director of affirmative action, equal opportunity, and diversity.

The announcement came a month after unrest that was sparked by the publication of a controversial cartoon in the student newspaper, The Good Five-Cent Cigar. A group of Black activists alleged the cartoon's publication reflects racism on campus.

Although the newspaper says the cartoon was misunderstood, one of the managing editors has resigned to take another job. A journalism professor who is on the newspaper's advisory, board says she hopes the move is not seen as a win for critics of the paper.

The Cigar had its funding temporarily cut off in December by the Student Senate after members of the Brothers United for Action (BUA) accused the newspaper of Dr. racism. BUA members say the editors acted irresponsibly late last year when they published a year-old editorial cartoon examining a White professor's attitude toward affirmative action (see Black Issues, Dec. 24, 1998).

Patrick Luce's decision to take a full-time job as a reporter at The Warwick Beacon comes as the BUA, a group of activist students, most of whom are Black, is considering impeachment proceedings against Luce and two other editors at the URI newspaper. Luce, 21, said his move was not prompted by the BUA's attack on The Cigar.

"I had planned on leaving anyway," Luce told The Providence Journal.

Linda Levin, a URI journalism professor who is on The Cigar's advisory board, said she is concerned that Luce's departure will be misinterpreted.

"My concern is that the campus will see this" as pressure exerted by the BUA against Luce and the newspaper's other editors, Elizabeth Barker and Timothy Ryan, Levin said. "It's not."

Francis, 47, will develop and oversee affirmative action and equal opportunity programs to ensure diversity on campus. He succeeds Sylvia Peters, who will take a teaching job at the university.

Francis is currently executive director of the Providence-based Minority Investment Development Corp., where he helps find loans for minority, businesses. After earning a bachelor's degree in 1973 from URI, Francis earned a law degree from George Washington University School of Law, and helped write legislation for treating toxic waste while at the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington, D.C.