University Archives Kerckhoff Hall, pictured here at its opening
in1931, continues to serve as a center for student activity.
University Archives Haines, Kinsey and Royce Halls, and Powell
Library made up the original Westwood campus. Â University
Archives During World War II, Air Corps officers would stand at
attention in the main quad during a daily ceremony.
By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Staff Today commemorates a milestone in UCLA’s
history, as the campus celebrates its 75th year at its Westwood
location. Throughout this time, the university has withstood the
wrath of war, bouts of civil protest and the changing times of an
evolving population. It all began in 1919 when Ernest Carroll Moore
was president of the Los Angeles State Normal School. It went out
of existence that year, and on May 23, its Vermont Avenue campus
was turned over to the University of California as its Southern
Branch ““ to be eventually renamed “UCLA” in 1927.
Moore was named director of the Southern Branch, and eventually the
expanding student body prompted the campus’ move to Westwood.
Almost as soon as the campus settled, social conflicts ensued.
Moore had a well-documented fear of communism, and he noticed small
student groups protesting the ROTC and showing admiration for the
Kremlin. When Royce Hall was under construction, Moore asked
architect George Kelham about the durability of the
university’s buildings. Kelham answered, “They will
last 2,000 years.” Moore pursued the inquiry over the years,
and in his autobiography, he came to a conclusion on what could
reduce UCLA to a pile of rubble. “So as far as I can
discover, there are only three: a 10-degree earthquake, … an
invading fleet of battleships standing out at sea or of bombing
planes flying through the air, (or) … a civil disturbance in
which destroyers with dynamite in their hands might set out to make
an end of all government,” he wrote.
 University Archives William Wallace
Campbell, UC pres., at a dedication ceremony. With this
structural confidence, on Oct. 24, 1930, the campus’ first
women’s dormitory ““ Mira Hershey Hall ““ was
built. Kerckhoff Hall was opened one year later, in the presence of
Moore and UC President Robert Sproul, as a center of student
activity and interaction.
Campus copes with conflict On Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was
attacked, and an ensuing flood of students and faculty filled Royce
Hall to listen to President Franklin Roosevelt ask Congress for a
declaration of war against Japan. Various Japanese student clubs,
representing the roughly 200 Japanese-American students at UCLA,
stated their loyalty to the United States and to the campus
community. “We may be called upon to perform an order to
carry out the resolution of our government. Individually and
collectively, we plead that our friends will accord us the same
impartiality and tolerance which they have shown in the
past,” they wrote. Many students subsequently enlisted in the
military or joined the American Red Cross to help the war effort.
That following February, the university reported that only 5,869
students returned, an 18.9 percent decrease in enrollment due to
many students choosing to remain in the armed forces.
Expansion and ultimatums The 1950s signaled a time of expansion
for the campus. During this decade, the Law School, Medical Center
and the Memorial Activities Center Pavilion ““ later renamed
Pauley Pavilion ““ were added. As the Cold War settled in, the
university began to feel its effects. On Feb. 24, 1950, the UC
regents issued an ultimatum to university faculty to declare in
their contracts that they did not support communism. Fifty deans
throughout the university formally opposed this clause, stating
that it “threatens the greatness of the university more than
anything that has happened in the university’s
history.” On Oct. 6 of that year, the regents fired 31 UC
faculty members for not signing a loyalty oath declaring that they
were not communist sympathizers.
Draft and demonstration With the Vietnam War in the 1960s, 1,500
students turned in their draft cards. War protests were intertwined
with the Civil Rights Movement, during which the campus was graced
by the presence of legends Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Muhammad
Ali. The ’60s also experienced an internal crisis. In 1967,
UC President Clark Kerr opposed a proposal by Gov. Ronald Reagan to
cut the university’s budget by 10 percent and to require that
students pay tuition. On Jan. 20, the regents, which included
Reagan, voted 14-8 to dismiss Kerr as president. This sparked an
8,000-student demonstration at MAC Pavilion, protesting the cuts,
tuition proposal and Kerr’s termination.
Police and protest UCLA dove into the mid-1970s filled with
student unrest as it experienced a silent police presence.
Undercover Los Angeles Police Department officers patrolled the
university and arrested unsuspecting students. In addition, the
period was marked by efforts to improve labor rights. César
Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers, spoke to UCLA students
in February 1978 about the plight of the immigrant farmer.
Political slide, scientific advancements In 1984, Reagan,
considered by many at the time to be a foe of the UC, won the
presidency in a landslide victory over Democratic opponent Walter
Mondale. The 1980s was also marked by key scientific firsts. On
Nov. 7, 1984, the first two in-vitro fertilized babies at the UCLA
Medical Center were born. The first diagnosis of Acquired
Immunodeficiency Syndrome also occurred during this decade. Also,
anti-nuclear groups pushed for the deactivation of a nuclear
reactor underneath Boelter Hall, and students held regular protests
against animal testing in scientific research.
 Daily Bruin Archives Students protest in 1967 against
budget cuts and the regents’ dismissal of UC President Clark
Kerr.
The fight for equality War protests introduced the beginning of
the ’90s. Students against American involvement in the
Persian Gulf War lay down in the streets on Jan. 16, 1991, stalling
Westwood traffic for several hours. On April 29, 1992, when four
LAPD officers were acquitted for police brutality charges against
Rodney King, riots ensued in Los Angeles. UCLA suffered a
considerable blow by the events, since undergraduate council
elections were stifled by city-imposed curfews. The fight for
equality in admissions reached its most recent conflict when on
July 20, 1995, the regents passed SP-1 and 2, effectively ending
the use of affirmative action in admissions and hiring in the UC.
This prompted a six-year-long effort for its repeal.
 Daily Bruin File Photo Students, along with Pilipino
veterans, protest for the repeal of SP-1 and 2 during UCLA’s March
14 rally. Back to the future
Symbolic success was found on May 16, 2001, when the regents
repealed the two policies. Under pressure from six years of protest
““ including a 1,000-student effort on March 14 that ended in
a Royce Hall takeover ““ the regents rescinded the policies.
Over the years, striking similarities have occurred between time
periods decades apart. In 1991, reacting to the Persian Gulf War,
UCLA held a series of seminars, titled “War 101,” to
help students understand and deal with the conflict. Ten years
later, in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center and Pentagon, the faculty again is offering its
expertise, in a series of seminars addressing the attacks and
ensuing military action. After 75 years, UCLA has educated hundreds
of thousands of students, shifted from rural to urban existence and
has grown from a four-building campus into a city in itself. And
according to Moore, we’ve got 1,925 years left until the
buildings fall.
With reports from Marcelle Richards, Daily Bruin Senior
Staff.
University Archives The original site of UCLA, back when it was
called the UC’s “Southern Branch,” was located on
Vermont Avenue.