This image was taken as University of Washington President John R. Hogness met with of minority students to explain the university's new affirmative action policy. The meeting was likely connected to the recent controversy created when the chairman of the department of political science nullified a faculty vote to hire Dr. Carlos Munoz with tenure. In the weeks after this image was taken UW students held a variety of protests, including a sit-in designed to force each department to hire a minority faculty member. The Munoz issue would be bitterly debated over the next several years. According to former student activist and current UW professor Erasmo Gamboa, “that incident is telling of the difficulty and the problems in working within the University for change. The University departments, faculty are not always accepting of change.”

Caption information source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 3, 1974, page A3.
Caption information source: "Protesters Rip Up Offices at UW," by Solveig Torvik and Martin Works, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 14, 1974, page 1, 6.