Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 26-May 3, 1999

Volume 27, Number 30

Alumna Jackson Lee recalls days
when 'We had to change the world'

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (Yale College '72) was in New Haven on April 17, joining fellow Yale graduates, students and friends in a weekend celebration of the 30th year of Yale's Afro-American Cultural Center.

"I am at home," said Jackson Lee at the beginning of her address to a capacity audience at the Omni New Haven Hotel.

But the Representative's talk wasn't all fond remembrances of bright college years. Touching on every subject from the impeachment of President Clinton (she was against it) to affirmative action (she is for it), Jackson Lee expressed her support for a variety of causes and items currently on the Democratic political agenda.

"I cannot afford to come here this evening and not be a rabble rouser," she said, urging an active involvement in the human rights struggle to which she has dedicated her career.

"We had a cause," she said of her political activism as a Yale undergraduate. "We had to change the world."

Recalling her days as a Yale student, she drew a vivid picture of New Haven in the throes of social unrest in the late 1960s. She described the tension that filled the air as armed guards stood vigil on the New Haven Green on the eve of the Black Panther trial, and she offered lavish praise to Kingman Brewster, then president of Yale, for defusing the volatile situation.

A staunch advocate for civil rights, Jackson Lee serves as a member of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, the Congressional Caucus on Women's Issues and the Congressional Black Caucus. She is perhaps best known, however, for her membership on the House Judiciary Committee that voted on the impeachment of President Clinton.

Impeachment was taken up with "great chagrin to Congress and the world," said Jackson Lee, whose failed motion to censure rather than impeach the President gained her national attention.

Ironically, she holds the same congressional seat as that of the late Barbara Jordan, best remembered for her role on the House Judiciary Committee that voted to impeach Richard Nixon.

Jackson Lee emphasized what she considers the fundamental differences between the two episodes of presidential impeachment hearings in our century. Though she views the more recent proceedings as wholly driven by partisan politics, she also sees the fact that the nation survived the incident with the political process intact as testimony that "the Constitution is alive and well."

Nonetheless, she said, she is perturbed by what she views as politicizing of the U.S. military efforts in Yugoslavia in a mean-spirited reaction to the outcome of the impeachment hearings. She notes that some colleagues "across the aisle," who are not traditionally antiwar, have taken a singularly pacifist position regarding American attempts to curb Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Favoring the bombing raids in Yugoslavia, while hopeful for a negotiated peace settlement, Jackson Lee admonished, "Those who want to play party politics with this situation will have a lot to answer for."

On a practical note, Jackson Lee put out a call to the Yale community for congressional interns. In addition to her other duties as representative from the 18th Congressional District of Texas, Jackson Lee is a member of the Committee on Science and the House Democratic Caucuses on Hunger, Welfare Reform, Economic Renewal, Affirmative Action and Travel and Tourism -- so, she said, she could use help from someone interested in a career in public service. She even recommended that students look to the opposite party's representatives in Congress as possible sources of employment opportunities.

At the end of her speech, Jackson Lee sounded an inspirational note, passionately exhorting the members of "Generation X" to continue the struggle for social justice.

"We had to take the energy for change away from the warm comfort of Yale College," she said of her generation, charging today's students to do the same: "Go on and prophesy."

-- By Dorie Baker

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Dwight Hall appoints a new leader
McClatchy among alumni elected to Academy of Arts and Letters
British Art Center pays tribute to its founder with Stubbs exhibit
Grant will support multifaceted research on human skeleton
'Please Be Seated': Yale Art Gallery show invites public to rest a spell
Classic comedy by Noel Coward will top off the season at the Yale Rep
New degree program to prepare oncology nurse practitioners
Susan Cook returns to Yale to head Cambodian Genocide Program
Two Yale College juniors receive prestigious Truman Scholarships
Alumna Jackson Lee recalls days when 'We had to change the world'
Staff member leads campaign to 'smart-wire' children in first years of life
Poets Ashbery and Hollander to read from their works
Drama School to present 'Life is a Dream'
Merger creates Council of European Studies
Visiting professor to discuss varying concepts of Europe
Symposium to consider future of broadcast, cable and net technologies
Longtime Yale Press editor-in-chief Edward Tripp dies at age 79
Forestry School to honor late librarian
Campus Notes