Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1940 [PAGE 269]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

266

BOARD O F TRUSTEES

[March 14

traffic, gambling, and operation of houses of ill fame and other forms of vice in the University community. "2. Recommending that any deficiencies of legal power, whether in the Governor, the Attorney General, or the Board of Trustees, or all of them, to deal with conditions within the range of the police power in the vicinity of State owned and operated institutions of higher education, when local officials appear unable or unwilling to deal adequately with them, be remedied by appropriate legislation to be sponsored in the 61 st General Assembly. "3. An emphatic and publicly announced declaration by the Board requesting the General Assembly, through appropriate enactments or resolutions, to restate the principle that State owned and operated educational institutions, like the University of Illinois, are not local but belong to the people of the whole State. Therefore, they should not be without adequate recourse, both prompt and effective, to measures for the protection of their students and not be left dependent on the competence or capacity of local officials. "4. Since the University stands in loco parentis to the students in attendance and has therefore and should assume and discharge a certain responsibility for the environment in which they live, the Board of Trustees should also be given the power to initiate removal proceedings against local municipal officers through the filing of a petition containing sufficient allegations of fact, when in the judgment of the Board responsible local municipal officials wilfully fail or inexcusably neglect to maintain moral conditions in the community in conformity with the standards set by the laws of the State and the local ordinances and when in the judgment of the Board such conditions have become a detriment or a menace to the welfare of the student body." Judge Johnson and Director Havens also presented statements of what the University has been doing in dealing with this problem. At this point, Mr. T. P. Sullivan, Superintendent of the Illinois State Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, joined the conference. H e stated that he had been directed by Acting Governor John Stelle to investigate the death of Mr. Spurrier, the circumstances and conditions responsible for it, and to render any aid he can to University officials in eradicating those conditions. After discussing all phases of the situation, on motion of Dr. Meyer, the Board members present unanimously adopted the following statement of policy and authorized the President of the University, as the Executive Agent of the Board, to proceed in accordance therewith: "The Board of Trustees expresses appreciation of the action of Acting Governor John Stelle in placing at its disposal, through Mr. T. P. Sullivan, Superintendent of the Illinois State Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, the services of that Bureau. T h e Board of Trustees, having no police power, except on the University Campus, asks the Governor and Attorney General of Illinois to proceed with utmost vigor against the delinquent local officials, bringing to bear all powers under existing laws to stamp out illegal liquor traffic, gambling, and operation of houses of ill fame and other forms of vice in the University community in Champaign. If additional legislation is needed to force local officials permanently to stamp out vice in the vicinity of the University of Illinois, the Board of Trustees, after conference with the Governor and Attorney General, will recommend appropriate action to the General Assembly." T h e Board members received the following telegram: " S T U D E N T B O D Y W I L L BACK ANY SPECIFIC A F F I R M A T I V E ACTION BOARD OF T R U S T E E S T A K E S T O R E M E D Y V I C E S I T U A T I O N . " This telegram was signed by the following: George Pace, President, Student Senate and Senior Class; Milt Hopwood, President, Interf raternity Council; Charles Filson, President, Men's Independent District Association; Barbara Batchelor, President, Woman's L e a g u e ; Ruth Adkins, President, W o m a n ' s Group System; Sarah Schwartz, President, P a n Hellenic Council; E d Borman, City Editor, Daily Illini; Jim Monroe, Editorial Editor, Daily Illini.