This interview, which took place on April 13, 1992, is from a continuing series of transcript excerpts from the collection of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida.
Lisa Heard [H] interviewed Dr. Phyllis Meek [M], the now retired UF associate dean for Student Services and assistant professor of Education, on April 13, 1992. Transcript edited by Beth Grobman. A full transcript of this interview is available at tinyurl.com/iguana9761
H: How did you start your career at UF?
M: As I was doing my dissertation [in the mid 1960s], the dean of women at the University of Florida and her staff retired. I was offered the job of assistant dean of women and decided to take it because I thought if I stayed here I would be more likely to finish my dissertation. I was afraid if I left I would not do that. That was an extremely exciting time because there was a lot of activism.
The student activists were challenging the idea of to what extent universities should pay attention to the behavior of students. That was one issue. There were other issues, such as curriculum reform and governance of the university. But the area where there was probably the most response had to do with those of us in Student Affairs. Many of us were sympathetic to a lot of the issues students were bringing up and we thought they were legitimate issues.
For example, we had rules that said a woman student could not stay overnight in a man’s apartment. If a male and female student who were not married spent the night in a hotel room, for example, then both of them could be suspended from the university. We had all kinds of curfews for women, but we did not have them for men. I used to think we should have them for men, not women. [laughter]
So we were involved in trying to change quite a few things, and it was interesting. We were doing things from an internal standpoint, but there was a lot of external pressure to look at different policies.
When I first came, we had a ban-on-speakers policy. That is why I think I feel very strongly about First Amendment rights. The first year I was here we also had a ban on publications.
H: Was there control over what students could say?
M: The ban was on outside speakers. It was on both, but particularly outside speakers. For example, the plaza at that time was not a free speech area. It is a free speech area now. The kinds of speakers who came to campus were very conservative. They certainly were not people who had very radical ideas in any way.
One of the first persons who spoke after that ban was lifted was Madelyn O’Hare. She and her son had led the case to the Supreme Court that banned prayer in schools. She is considered an atheist, and she led that case. I remember that she spoke on the plaza, and it was so crowded that we had to stand across the street by the auditorium.
The Alligator at that time was an on-campus publication. It was the only publication allowed on campus, and that began to be challenged, too.
So there were some very exciting things going on during that time, things that obviously needed to change.
H: It sounds like a tumultuous time on campus. How did you feel about what was going on? It sounds like you were on the side of the students a lot of the time.
M: I think that most of us in Student Affairs were on the side of the students. We viewed ourselves as being very student-oriented. I think where we sometimes got caught was that, obviously, as administrators we had to go ahead and carry out whatever the position of the university was. It was either that or quit our jobs.
I think what a lot of us were trying to do was to effect change internally. What became difficult was that I was by nature an activist and also interested in civil rights issues and women’s concerns and women’s issues. I viewed myself as being a liberal, activist person, and yet being labeled as part of the administration. In those days the student activists saw administration as being the enemy. At times that was difficult to deal with.
I think I felt less frustrated than I might have otherwise, because we were beginning to do a lot of changing. We did away with most of the regulations for women students during that period. We did away with the dress code. We began changing the curfews. At the same time, there was a move to go to co-ed residence halls.
H: How about the 1970s? What went on here for you?
M: In the early 1970s the women’s movement had really become more full-blown. Even on this campus, we had a lot of activity in the 1970s. I remember Gloria Steinem, before she became famous, coming here and speaking. We had forums that involved women’s issues in the early 1970s. I used to always go to those. I had been interested in those issues all along, but I became much more aware and much more involved at that time.
H: Moving into the 1980s, how did women’s issues change?
M: The 1980s really proved to be a very exciting time, and there were a lot of changes that began to occur. Again, change is relative, and certainly we did not effect a lot of it. There still have been a lot of things on this campus that have not changed.
For example, while I think that overall the status of women has improved, where we really have not improved is that we still have very few females in leadership roles. We have no female vice-presidents. We have only one female dean of a college. We have very few women who are department chairs. While there are some more women in administrative positions, they are not in the kind of positions where they really effect change or where they have say in who is hired and so forth.
Now, where I think there has been real progress — and this began happening in the 1970s— was opportunities for women students increased. At least a woman student can now major in anything she wants to, and while there may be some subtle discrimination, I do not think it is nearly to the degree it used to be.
H: There has been a swing of the pendulum to the right.
M: Very much so. While we continued activism in the 1980s, we had to begin using somewhat different tactics, probably within the system, although there was some push outside as well. So I think it has to be a different kind of activism.
For one thing, the discrimination is not as overt as it used to be. It is still there; there is still plenty of sex discrimination and certainly a tremendous amount of sexism. There is also a tremendous amount of homophobia and a tremendous amount of racism. All those things are present, but they are more subtle than they used to be.
I think, however, something that concerns me in the last three or four years has been a backlash I see happening, particularly a lessening of tolerance for differences on campus.
Now it is a little more acceptable to be overtly racist or overtly homophobic. Well, it has always been all right to be overtly sexist and homophobic. I think for a while it was not appropriate to be racist. Now even that is fair game. But it has always been all right to be sexist. It has always been fair game to be homophobic.
One of the things that I have recently been involved with that I’ve really enjoyed is a committee on sexism and homophobia.
In 1989, another person on our staff and I decided we needed to do something in a more formalized, systematic way about the issues of sexism. We started out with that, and then became aware of more instances of homophobia occurring on campus. We were aware of gay male students and lesbians being harassed, so we decided to put together the Committee on Sexism and Homophobia.
What I see happening that is distressing to me is a lessening of tolerance for differences. This is becoming more and more the case as the economy gets tighter. It is kind of like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
A friend of mine used to say that affirmative action is a product of full employment. If you have a lot of latitude, then there is more tolerance. But when things get really tight, as the economy is now, people pull back and want to surround themselves in a kind of protective way with other people who are most like themselves. They become less and less tolerant of people who are different from themselves. I see that as an alarming trend on campus.
I really do feel that much of this lack of toleration is a reflection of the very selfish, very “me-ism” and “greedism” that has been perpetuated by Reagan and Bush and the ideology that they both represent. I guess Bush has an ideology; I am not sure. It is by default, if nothing else. It has become much more acceptable in our society to be bigoted. People felt that way previously, but now they feel much more free to express it. I find that alarming.
H: You do not foresee it getting better?
M: Not for a while. If people are worried about survival needs, then those more civilized kinds of things take less precedence.
H: What has been the response on campus to the homophobia workshops?
M: I would say generally positive. If nothing else, we have at least gotten the issue out in the open. There is a lot more discussion now than there used to be, and I always feel that in an educational environment that is what you want.
I am not saying that the homophobia is less, but I think there is at least more discussion about the kind of bias and prejudice against gays and lesbians that exists. It is more openly discussed, and I feel that is healthier.
I was horrified at the results of the referendum that was put on the ballot during the student government elections that had to do with funding of GLSU, the Gay and Lesbian Student Union. The majority of people voted not to fund it.
Hopefully, one of the things we have accomplished through our committee is that the Gay and Lesbian Student Union did come back on campus. That group had been literally harassed on campus for a while. In about 1987 the students got so tired of all the harassment they received when they would go up for funding or try to get space in the union, that they just pulled out and went off campus.
H: They continually had to fight for funding.
M: They got harassed beyond belief, so I can understand that. But I was horrified that a campus like ours could not have a gay and lesbian student group, because most campuses do. So I was pleased that those students felt comfortable enough to come back on campus last spring.
I would hope that maybe some of the work we have done through the Committee on Sexism and Homophobia has helped make those students feel more comfortable. We had a program during People Awareness Week where we had a lesbian speaker.
We have done all kinds of workshops on homophobia and sexism. There have been articles in the Alligator. There was a whole group of letters back and forth.
I think discussion is healthy, because my sense in talking with gays and lesbians is that the biggest problem is invisibility.
Up until when we formed the committee, there had been no official acknowledgement that gays and lesbians even existed. Obviously, if national data are correct, 10 percent of the students, faculty, and staff are gay or lesbian or bisexual.
H: How about in the field of counseling? How has your understanding of sexism and your feminist stance affected your attitudes about counseling or your approach?
M: I view myself not only as a feminist but as a humanist, and I try to use a very humanistic approach in dealing with students. I believe in the basic worth of people. I think that people basically have the ability to grow, that people do want to become self-fulfilled, self-actualized persons, and most of the people I deal with have barriers to that at this point in time.
Fortunately for most of our students, those are situational barriers or maybe a matter of different developmental levels. It’s just a matter that they have not matured enough or grown enough to get to the other levels. This includes things such as learning to take responsibility for one’s behavior and things of that nature.
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