The Washington Tribune

DURKEE WHITEWASHED
Charges School Teachers Hold Positions Illegally

DURKEE ADMITS CALLING KELLY MILLER A "PUP"

The Howard University board of trustees on Thursday exonerated J. Stanley Durkee and approved of his actions as president of Howard University, after a hearing of charges preferred against him by the alumni and an inquiry into the dismissal without cause of Professors Alain LeRoy Locke, Alonzo H. Brown, Metz T. P. Lochard and Orlando C. Thornton.

The board declined to hear the evidence submitted in the majority of the cases upon which charges were based, taking the position that the matters involved had been passed upon by the board.

The board of trustees voted that "none of the charges against President J. Stanley Durkee has been sustained by adequate or convincing evidence." The trustees also voted to give a full year's salary to the four professors who were dismissed summarily.

In a resolution adopted the board expressed its confidence in Dr. Durkee. It said that:

"No proof has been brought forward which in the minds of the Trustees proves President Durkee to have been guilty of arbitrary or irregular action in his functions as President of the University. All direct personal charges against him are unsupported by evidence. No abuse of his powers as President of the University was proven. His connection with the Curry School of Expression in Boston was approved at the time by the Trustees. He has since relinquished that connection."

Present at the meeting of the Board of Trustees were the following Trustees: Dr. Charles R. Brown, President of the Board of Trustees; Dr. Sara W. Brown; Mr. Rolfe Cobleigh, Boston, Mass.; Dr. Michel O. Dumas; Dr. J. Stanley Durkee; Victor B. Deyber, Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart, John R. Hawkins, Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, C. H. Pope, Justice Stanton J. Peelle, Dr. Ulysses G. B. Pierce, Dr. J. E. Moorland, Brooklyn, N.Y.; James C. Napier, General John H. Sherburne, Dr. Marcus F. Wheatland, Dr. C. Sumner Wormley.

Dr. Durkee was charged with incompetence, arbitrariness, the establishment of an espionage system, manhandling of professors, diverting appropriations, favoritism and insulting the Race.

The bill of particulars charged that

1. His educational policies have been erratic, ill-advised and productive of sudden arbitrary and disrupting changes in the organization and management of the university.

2. He has ignored the regular channels and customs of the university, especially in the appointment and dismissal of faculty members without the advice, recommendation and knowledge of the deans and heads of the departments.

3. By reason of personal disagreement with Dr. Durkee, the university has lost a number of the most scholarly members of the teaching force, some of whom had national and international reputations.

4. He has pursued an arbitrary and dictatorial policy, supported by a system of espionage and intimidation and has established a reputation of personal suspicion, unreliability, reliance upon rumor without investigation, and personal animus and bias.

5. He has disregarded and antagonized the officials of the alumni association by usurping their functions and invading their rights by imposing upon his body an alumni secretary of his personal choice, and by devising means for eliminating the alumni from participation in university affairs.

6. He has insulted and violently handled faculty members, particularly Dr. Thomas W. Turner, whom he forcibly ejected from his office, and Dean Kelly Miller, whom he called a "contemptible cur."

The president testified that it was largely upon his own influence and recommendation that Dr. Turner was placed at Hampton; in this connection, he stated that he had answered numerous inquiries from colored members of the trustee board.

The Alumni Committee produced letter from Dr. Durkee to an alumnus in the middle-West in which he (Durkee) charged that Dr. Turner had left the university without due notice thereby embarrassing the university officials.

President Durkee denied calling
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Durkee Admits Calling Kelly Miller a "Pup"

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Prof. Kelly Miller "a puppy," but admitted that he said, "You pup, get out of my office."

7. He diverted approximately 50 per cent of the sum of $15,000 provided by the trustees for increase of salaries of academic teachers to the employment of new teachers, all of whom he preferentially retained in June, 1925, when his so-called retrenchment program went into effect.

He has been arbitrary and vindictive in his recommendations of promotions, increases of salary and other executive action with reference to the teaching force.

8. His influence has been irreparably impaired by his open affront and insult to the Race in his acceptance of the presidency of the Curry School of Expression in Boston, from which Negroes are excluded, by holding these two offices for the academic year of 1924-25.

These charges were signed by George Frazier Miller, president; Isaac H. Nutter, chairman of the executive committee, and Thomas B. Dyett, secretary of a special committee, of the General Alumni Association.

The hearing began at 10 o'clock Thursday morning. Dr. Durkee was represented by Attorney James A. Cobb. Dean Fenton W. Booth of the Howard University law school acted as legal adviser to the trustee board.

Attorneys Thomas B. Dyett of New York, James A. Lightfoot of Atlantic City, and George A. Parker appeared for the alumni. Other alumni members composing a committee were Archibald S. Pinkett, Nellie M. Quander, the Rev. W. D. Jarvis and Thomas Walker.

A bombshell was thrown into the hearing when members of the faculty were called in groups of six by the board to give their opinion of the conduct of Dr. Durkee. They divide in their opinions, the older faculty members, with the exception of Dr. E. P. Davis and Dean D. W. Woodard, expressing disapproval, and the younger members expressing approval. The more outspoken members of the faculty against Dr. Durkee's conduct were Dean Kelly Miller, Professors William V. Tunnell, George W. Cook, Ernest E. Just, Roy W. Tibbs, Charles H. Wesley and Miss Lulu V. Childers.

The name of Emmett J. Scott, secretary-treasurer of the university, was drawn into the hearing. Alonzo H. Brown during the probe into the dismissal of the four professors testified that he was advised that Mr. Scott told Carter G. Woodson prior to their dismissal that ten faculty members would be dismissed and submitted a list consisting of the names of Kelly Miller, George W. Cook, Miss Lulu V. Childers, Roy W. Tibbs, George W. Hines, Orlando C. Thornton, Metz T. P. Lochard, Alain LeRoy Locke, Charles W. Wesley and Alonzo H. Brown.

The investigation was had as a result of five members of the board of trustees signing a petition requesting Charles R. Brown, president of the board, to call a meeting. Two colored members of the board signed this petition. They were Bishop John Hurst and Dr. C. Sumner Wormley.

Members of the alumni regard the proceedings as a "whitewash." Notwithstanding this, members of the alumni are of the belief that the opening wedge has been made and that it is only a question of time before Dr. Durkee will either resign or be dismissed.