A. News Organizations, 1990-1999

Summary: This series chronicles the aftermath of President Lawrence's controversial comments on the individual, organizational, and national levels through press coverage and printed statements.

The "News Organization" files contain news coverage related to the firestorm created by Lawrence's remarks. Local and national coverage of the tumultuous events by news sources was presented in news stories, editorials, letters-to-editors, syndicated columns, op-ed pieces, proof copies, and political cartoons. Johnson's collection of the news coverage of the events was assembled with copy provided by the Department of University Communications and items personally clipped. Many items have passages highlighted by Johnson or marked with his margin notes.

The Star-Ledger, New York Times, and Home News were clipped daily by staff members; other papers clipped several days later. A chronological set of all Targum stories about the 1995 University Crisis with an inventory provided by Targum staff was obtained by Johnson in October 1997.

This set is filed in Box 2, Folders 8 and 9 preceding the folders 10 and 11 containing the Targum items originally saved by Dr. Johnson. Results from later Internet searches of the 1995 news coverage done by Johnson are also in this subseries. Contact information, as available (usually a business card) is filed in appropriate folders.

News organizations with extensive coverage are arranged in separate folders by name. Folders are arranged alphabetically within series and items in each folder are set in chronological order. An exception to this general collection rule is Box 3, Folder 2 "National News Coverage"; items in this folder are in alphabetical order according to news source. Box 3, Folder 13 deals exclusively with the arrest and trial of Rutgers University students stemming from the April 12, 1995 protest. It contains news clippings, arrest reports and statements.

Response to Lawrence's remarks are also contained in the "Individual and Group Responses" files. Two organizations had their beginnings in the charged atmosphere after remarks by President Lawrence were made public. The United Student Coalition (Box 4, Folder 19) was a unifying organization of many campus student groups who believed a united voice to be stronger. Nearly 200 Black and Latino faculty and staff from all three campuses met in New Brunswick and out of a sense of a need to act formed the Coalition of Black and Latino Faculty and Staff (Folder 3). Johnson served as Interim Coordinator. The creation of these organizations, their agendas and early impact are documented in their respective folders. The statements, letters, position papers, open letters, transcripts in response to Lawrence's remarks, fax cover pages, directories, member lists, recommendations, publications and petitions in all the folders show the dramatic and emotional responses to Lawrence's remarks both within and outside the Rutgers Community.