Trusteeship Podcast Episode 50: Black Woman on Board – The Claudia Hampton Story

Introduction:
Welcome to the Trusteeship Podcast from AGB, the Association of Governing Boards of universities and colleges. We cover everything higher education leaders need to know about the challenges facing our nation’s colleges and universities. More important, we provide the facts and insight you need to solve those challenges and to be the storytellers and advocates higher education needs.

Today, we’re talking about Dr. Claudia Hampton, who was the first Black woman to serve on the California State University Board of Trustees and who was a key force in the fight for affirmative action in the CSU system. Hampton gained the trust of her predominantly male white fellow board members by employing “sly civility.” In this podcast, AGB Executive Vice President Mary Papazian, a former president of San Jose State University, speaks with Dr. Donna Nicol, who is the Associate Dean for Personnel and Curriculum in the College of Liberal Arts at California State University, Long Beach and the author of Black Woman on Board, which chronicles Dr. Hampton’s tenure on the CSU board and her lasting influence on the Cal State system.

Mary Papazian:
Hello, I’m delighted to welcome with me today Dr. Donna Nicol, who has published a book, Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action. Really powerful book and really looking forward to talking with Donna about it. But let me start by saying, Donna, did you want to say hello? And just welcome to the group listening.

Donna Nicol:
Thank you so much for having me. It’s a real honor and a delight to be able to talk about Dr. Hampton and talk about what she did to advance the Cal State system.

Mary Papazian:
Now as a former president in the Cal State system, this was a revelation to me, I have to be honest. And it sounds from reading the book that it was a little bit of what revelation to you as well. Dr. Hampton played a significant role on the California State University Board of Trustees for 20 years, both as the first African-American woman to serve and, what surprises many people, as an appointee of California Governor Ronald Reagan. She was also a key force in the fight for affirmative action and CSU system, and yet she’s relatively unknown. What led you to discover her story and why did you think it was worth sharing?

Donna Nicol:
I discovered Dr. Hampton by looking on a digital archive for any information I could find about a community organization that my grandmother created called The Office for Black Community Development. And so I was actually looking for something completely different and happened upon this photograph of a Black woman in doctoral regalia standing at a podium at a 1967 graduation ceremony at Cal State Dominguez Hills. And underneath it, the photo, the notation said, “Trustee Claudia Hampton appointed by Ronald Reagan.” And I just was so floored by it given what I knew, or at least I thought I knew about Ronald Reagan, particularly around his politics on civil rights and social justice activism.

So as any good researcher, I said, “Well, who is she?” And so I did a quick Google search and found information about a scholarship program that the CSU still continues to this day. It’s called the Claudia Hampton Memorial Trustee Scholarship. And then it was a little blurb about her and it says she was the first Black trustee. She was the first Black woman trustee. It started me on this path of to find anything I could find about her.

And so I went to the CSU Archive, which was at Dominguez Hills ironically and they said, “Hey, we got a box of information from former CSUDH President Donald Gerth, who wrote pretty much the only book on the entire system, which is called The People’s University. And we have all of his notes. So would you like to look through that box?” Sure.

And at the bottom of a box is a cassette tape that says, “Interview with Claudia Hampton.” And I just was so stunned that I said, “What? How lucky am I to be able to hear her in her own words?” And so I transcribed that interview, or at least I started to transcribe that interview. I didn’t get through the whole thing before I took a break. And as I explained in the book, I had some consternations about some of her approaches to board leadership that made me walk away from the project initially and then circle back to it. But I did realize very soon after transcribing at least most of it, I needed to tell her story. I needed people to know who she was.

Mary Papazian:
It’s one of the wonderful serendipities of research, isn’t it? And the story though is an incredible story, 20 years as a trustee and really in many ways a lone voice. And yet she built allies, she built bridges. And you describe her strategy as, I hadn’t heard this term before, “sly civility.” I wondered if you could define what sly civility is and how Dr. Hampton employed it to advance affirmative action within the California State University system, and particularly with her fellow trustees on the board of trustees.

Donna Nicol:
Sly civility was a concept or an idea coined by Indian cultural theorist, Homi Bhabha. And what it principally is a form of pragmatism or form of resistance strategy that utilizes pragmatism that says that when you enter into spaces that you are traditionally kept out of, whether it’s because of your race or your gender, any kind of religious background, you need to be civil with the people who are in power. Learn about all their opportunities, their resources, get their knowledge, and then slyly pass all that information back to your community so that the community can benefit from it.

Why I use this as the kind of theoretical framing of the book is I needed to figure out a way to explain how Claudia Hampton was operating on this board where, again, she was the first Black woman, she became the first woman chair of the board. And what did she need to do or to understand what she needed to do in to be effective?

So in the context of the Cal State system, Claudia Hampton, like I said, she was the first Black woman. She was the fifth woman to ever get on the board. So she was dealing with the gender norms and sexism of the day, but she’s also Black, and so she’s got to deal with those twin issues at the same time. How do you kind of build some capital so that you can either make change or to help push policy through? And when you have identity, that can be a barrier.

Sly civility offers a possibility of another way. She has to downplay her identity some kind of way without forsaking it. And one of the ways she does that is to… She starts to trade votes with the powerful men on the board. “If you want an art installation to be 6 feet instead of 10 feet, sure, I’ll trade votes with you,” so that she could show them that she was a political moderate. That was the rationale behind a lot of that.

And as she started to do that, she realized that there were some conversations that she was being locked out of. There were months when she wouldn’t hear from the board. And yet when they would come into the board meeting, decisions were already made. She knew instinctively that she was being kept out of what they called the informal telephone network, and she said, “I got to figure out a way to get on this. I got a way. I’m going to invite them to my house for dinner.”

That group of powerful trustees, the ones that wielded influence over everyone else, she started to invite them to her house for dinner, and she became a hostess to the telephone network. And that was a way for her to downplay her race, but play to the gender norm. So by playing to the gender norm, she doesn’t have them upset with her because she’s like a staunch feminist. Because what you would see later as the chancellor’s office leadership starts to change, they’re very anti-woman kind of sentiments starts to come up. But Hampton is inculcated from that because she’s cooked dinner for these men. And that was a real surprise to me. Like, “You what? You cooked dinner in order to gain access?” Eventually I started to see the genius behind it, but it took me some time to say, “You cooked dinner. What?” It just seemed so antithetical to my own politics. But then you see the outcome of it and it is quite genius.

Mary Papazian:
Yeah, it’s a fascinating tale because it really shows an awareness of the dynamics that she was facing. And she kept her eye on the prize, if you will. And if she had to navigate differently from what you might’ve expected, she did so. And it takes a lot of real awareness. What also became clear in your telling is that she was a very committed trustee.

We at AGB have published the Principles of Trusteeship. This is one of our most popular publications. But long before we ever did that, Dr. Hampton was actually embodying those principles. And I want to just point out in particular Principle One, which is all about preparation. Prepare in advance, show up fully present, and participate productively. And also know your votes. I mean, that’s just the good politician in her.

How did Dr. Hampton’s prep work before board meetings contribute to her success in navigating the challenges of being a Black woman trustee, and in this case, moving the board to do some things that it wasn’t actually ready to do?

Donna Nicol:
I called it quiet observation and extensive preparation. Her first year on the board, she really said nothing. She didn’t really talk. They put her in charge of the rules and organization committee, which it was kind of like where you put new trustees so they can get their feet wet, but it really didn’t hold a lot of power unless you knew how to make it hold a lot of power. And that’s what Hampton actually did. She read the board rules inside and out. She knew the policies.

And then she knew how to wield the calendar because the calendar would dictate when things would come up for discussion. And so she was very, very mindful of the calendar and also the board rules, but she also observed how the board functioned. Why is it that the men on the board were pretty much hands off with the Educational Policy committee and the Faculty and Student Affairs committee, but they were super interested in Buildings and the Finance committee. And she said, “Well, wherever they are going, I’m going to go the opposite because then I can have more influence on the board.” So she made it a priority to get on the Educational Policy committee. And for the 20 years that she served on the board, she was on that committee at least 17 times.

So that was one thing, was to observe who are the power players, why is it there were a lull in conversations, the board meetings would be so structured that there wouldn’t be a lot of conversation, yet people already came with their minds made up about policies, without a lot of discussion. Something had to be happening behind the scenes.

When she did become board chair, she knew how to wield power there too, because what she would do is call on all of her political allies and let them speak first, and then her opponents would have to be on the defense. So she was just a master at learning how the system worked, being very careful and deliberate in her preparation.

That yielded eventually policy changes. So for example, there was one year where she said, “Hey, let’s just review the policies. We’re getting ready to hire a new chancellor. Let’s make sure our policies are up-to-date.” And so everyone was like, “Oh, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. We probably should review them.” And what she got out of it was a policy that would hold campus presidents accountable for the implementation of affirmative action. She knew what she wanted, but she did not tell them that she wanted this because then I would’ve raised alarms like, “Why does Claudia want this policy?” But because she knew the policies inside and out, and then there was a lull period where no one had reviewed the policies by studying and preparing, she could get the policy that she wanted.

Mary Papazian:
Yeah, this deep knowledge of the workings, just the practical workings of a board really is power. And Claudia’s experience on the board of trustees of the CSU for 20 years, and a significant part of that time as chair really shows her mastery of it.

We also know at AGB that governing boards can be drivers of change or they can be roadblocks to progress. Depending on how well they’re working, the kind of leadership they have, Claudia clearly had a goal to bring the board of trustees of the CSU to support the diverse students, particularly the Black students, and was strongly moving them in the direction of supporting affirmative action because it was about equitable student success. It was about realizing and supporting students who hadn’t traditionally been supported, and also creating real opportunity and a pathway to the university for the same students.

With her understanding of just the nuts and bolts of how a board works, which she didn’t get an orientation from AGB on, she just learned it by watching, how did she navigate the challenges on the CSU board, and how could you generalize from this for other trustees who might be listening to this podcast as they navigate similar difficult challenges on their own boards?

Donna Nicol:
I definitely think that her example of learning board policy is fundamental to everything that you do, so that you would always have a kind of sense of why things are moving in the direction that they’re moving.

I think the other thing that’s important to advance student success, you have to build allies on the board, and that was what Claudia Hampton did, even with people who were diametrically opposed to her politically. For her, she realized that the policy itself, people weren’t voting necessarily just on the policy. They were voting on her and her relationship with them. And so she had to build relationships with members of the board in ways that were personal. She personalized each interaction. She learned not only their names and their politics, but she learned their spouse’s names. She sent greeting cards to everyone. She would go have dinner, go have a cigarette with the guys.

So that relationship building was really important because when it came time to put forward funding requests to expand affirmative action, folks would say, “Well, I don’t really like affirmative action, but I like Claudia Hampton. She’s our trustee.” That’s how they described her. So I think using that kind of influence and personal touch was really important. And I think in more modern iterations of boards, we tend to shy away from that, but I think there’s something to be said for the kind of social capital that you can build.

I think the other thing that’s important for boards is to encourage board diversity. And I’m not just talking about racial diversity or gender diversity, but diversity of opinions so that you can make good policy because you need people from different walks of life helping to shape that policy. So you can think about all the possibilities. So when Hampton’s on the board, there isn’t that much diversity. It’s mostly white men. And many of them, at least for the first five years are conservative leaning. And then after that, it starts to diversify a little bit more.

What she does with that is she really picks her battles with them. No one could say that she was a radical or radical in one way or the other. They would say she was a strong advocate for affirmative action. She would always speak on affirmatively for affirmative action, but there were times when she knew she had to be a pragmatist. And for instance, when there was a debate about admission standards to create what we now see as the A-III requirements, there were some groups that were opposed to these standards because the assumption is that it was going to keep more students of color out of the university. And Hampton said, “No, we need to increase the standards of our institution, but we can put in policies to help ensure that we pay attention to diversity and we can watch how the data shifts. And if we need to have something in the policy that says if we start to see a decline in students of color getting admitted to the university, we have a fail-safe that’s kind of built into the policy.”

So she knew that she had to give a little to get a little.

Mary Papazian:
Yeah, there’s a real practicality in what you describe. And I wonder, given how much time you’ve spent with her now, and she passed away, I think it was close to 30 years ago, so this is going back into the historical record, but let’s say we could bring her back today at a time when there is a backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion, when the courts have acted on the question of affirmative action, that has really, I think, challenged some of the work that she did in her life while she was on the board, how do you think she would respond to this? I’m sure there would be personal disappointment, but if she were still on the board of Trustees, whether it was at CSU or at another institution, what do you think would be her message to trustees today?

Donna Nicol:
I do think that she would try to think of some practical ways to ensure this diversity. One way I think, or at least I’m guessing she would agree with, is moving to more holistic review. So instead of relying solely on the traditional measures to be admitted into the university, that we would take a more holistic look at a student’s academic profile and make some more qualitative decisions about admissions. I also think that she would also want the CSU to invest or do more partnerships with community organizations that could help prepare students for college and universities, because we have a lot of students who graduate from high school, but a lot of students are not getting advised properly on how to get ready for college.

What could community organizations do? Hampton was very involved in community organization. So could the fraternities and sororities do more? Could you have the NAACP and all these other organizations really helping in concert with the system? I mean, when she was on the board, she had helped to get the 100 Black Men of Los Angeles. She got them a half-a-million-dollar grant to work with Black male students to increase their readiness for college. So I think she would start to try to look for little avenues to increase diversity.

Also, I think she would be supportive of is faculty governance over the curriculum. Because I think what’s been happening with a politicized curriculum, we’ve taken out the faculty voice in some ways. I think she would advocate for the faculty to be able to say, “We are the experts in this area. As a board member, I’m going to support policies that would reaffirm faculty expertise.”

Mary Papazian:
So there’s always accountability and there’s responsibility. And in some doing, she’s really playing the role of a board member, which is to provide strategic leadership and guidance, but also to really leave in the hands of the senior leadership team and the president and the members of the campus community to fulfill their roles, which is a very different one than having trustees reach down into institutions to try to provide that guidance.

I know we’re running out of time, so I wondered if you could offer a couple of final words perhaps about any lessons for women trustees and women leaders, through her example, and for trustees of all backgrounds more broadly.

Donna Nicol:
Probably one of the most important lessons for women trustees is to be clear about why you are there, what is it you’re there to achieve. Hampton never shied away from saying she was there to help make sure affirmative action was implemented. She was very clear about that. Those were her constituents. That’s how she talked about it. She had clear goals and objectives, but she also knew that she had to work with other people in order to get there and it might take her some time to get there. So you can’t rush the process. You need to learn how the system really works and then build alliances with people from different backgrounds.

You’re going to have a team of people who will automatically support you, but you’re going to have to be able to work with those naysayers too. How can you compromise with them on some things? The willingness to be able to negotiate with somebody who is opposed to what you want to do is something I think a lot of women trustees really need to practice and get comfortable with because you’re not going to always have everybody on your side. And you can’t get upset if you don’t have everybody on your side, but you can work to get them, at least move them in that direction.

And then more broadly, I think for all trustees, I think Hampton really shows the power of relationship building. I think it’s an underrated skill to have.

Mary Papazian:
It’s a reminder at a time when we see around us so much division and I think a failure of reaching across and listening to people who may bring a different perspective or have different experiences. So it’s really great to read the story of someone who fought for something she cared deeply about, but did it in a way that allowed others to participate in that process with her. And I think just a great lesson.

Congratulations on the book, Donna. And thank you for sharing the story of this remarkable trustee, remarkable leader, our remarkable woman.

Donna Nicol:
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.