Civil rights activist campaigns
against 'racist’ immigration bill
By Paul Ertelt
Of the Emerald
Civil libertarian Frank
Wilkinson estimates the FBI has
spent $17 million since it began
its surveillance of him 42 years
ago.
“And I’m worth every penny
of it,” says the 70-year-old ex
ecutive director emeritus of the
National Committee Against
Repressive Legislation. Wilkin
son was in Eugene this week to
speak against the Simpson/Maz
zoli immigration bill, which he
says is racist legislation that
will make it difficult for any
Hispanic-American to get a job.
Wilkinson discussed this
issue in front of about 25 people
on campus Tuesday, choosing
Eugene as his forum because it
Frank Wilkinson
is the home of Rep. )im Weaver,
D-Ore., a supporter of the bill.
Wilkinson believes he can alter
Weaver’s position.
Because the immigration bill
carries penalties for employers
who hire “undocumented
workers,” Wilkinson fears that
employers will refuse to hire
Hispanics for fear they might be
illegal aliens.
The Democratic-controlled
House of Representatives pass
ed the measure June 20 and is
expected to vote on an amended
version sometime this summer.
Wilkinson also opposes the
package of anti-crime bills
recently passed by the Senate.
Those bills, which must be ap
proved by the House, are an
assault on the Bill of Rights, he
says.
The crime bills place limits
on writs of habeus corpus, peti
tions which seek the prompt
release of persons under
custody. The proposed laws
also allow for preventive deten
tion of “dangerous” persons
and establish federal death
penalties.
Wilkinson is a veteran of bat
tles against what he considers
attacks on basic freedoms. In
1961 he spent 90 days in jail for
refusing, on First Amendment
grounds, to testify before the
House Un-American Activities
Committee.
“The greatest right of the
First Amendment is not the
freedom of speech, but the
freedom to be silent,” he says.
Wilkinson says his most im
portant battle was his opposi
tion to HUAC, which was
abolished in 1974. NCARL, is a
political information organiza
tion that was founded in 1961
by constitutional scholar Alex
ander Meikeljohn and civil
libertarian Aubrey Williams.
Although the organization often
works in conjunction with the
American Civil Liberties Union,
it does not engage in litigation.
Wilkinson, who was born in
Michigan and raised in Beverly
Hills, Calif., says he was
politically conservative when
he was young and had planned
to become a Methodist minister.
After his graduation from
UCLA, his parents sent him to
the Holy Land. There he got a
view of the world that changed
the direction of his life, he says.
“On Christmas Eve, there
were so many beggars outside
the site where they say Christ
was born, I could not go into the
Church of the Nativity,” he
says.
Returning to Los Angeles,
Wilkinson met the Rev. Thomas
J. O’Dwyer, director of charities
for the Catholic archdiocese.
O’Dwyer told Wilkinson “you
did not have to go so far” to see
human suffering.
“He drove me eight miles
from my home to the ghetto of
Watts,” Wilkinson says.
“There, conditions were equal
to or worse than what I had seen
in the Holy Land.”
That same day, Wilkinson
worked with O’Dwyer pro
moting construction of low
rent, integrated housing pro
jects. In 1942 he joined the Los
Angeles Housing Authority and
managed an integrated project
in Watts, but he was fired from
that post when he refused to
testify before the California
Legislature.
It was during the 1940s that
the FBI first became interested
in Wilkinson, although he was
not involved in any criminal ac
tivity. Wilkinson attributes this
interest to then-FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover’s dislike for
integration.
Professor to teach in Europe
Allan Winkler, a University associate pro
fessor of history, has been named the first oc
cupant of the John Adams Professorship in
American Studies at the University of Amster
dam where he will teach and lecture the
1984-85 academic year.
Supported by a Distinguished Scholar
Grant provided by the Netherlands America
Commission for Educational Exchange,
Winkler will teach a basic survey course in
American history and a seminar on recent
American topics. He also will lecture
throughout the Netherlands and Europe.
An expert in post-World War II American
history, Winkler graduated magna cum laude
from Harvard University and earned his
master’s and doctoral degrees at Columbia and
Yale Universities, respectively. He held the
Bicentennial Chair in American Studies at
Helsinki University in Finland during
1978-79, and joined the University of Oregon
faculty in 1979.
Winkler is the author of “The Politics of
Propaganda: The Office of War Information,
1942-45,” and is completing work on three
other books.
This summer, Winkler is using a Universi
ty Faculty Research Award to study American
atomic energy policy since 1960. He also is
serving on a faculty committed overseeing the
development of an American studies program
which, if approved by the Oregon State Board
of Higher Education, would begin in the fall of
1986.
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