On Jan. 8, 1969, more than 50 black students walked into Joseph and Clara Ford Hall, insisted the day's classes be cancelled and staged a sit-in they vowed not to end until the University met their demands.Among those demands were the formation of an African Studies Department, the hiring of more black professors and the creation of an Afro-American Center, an idea that eventually inspired the Intercultural Center. At the time, white students' initial reactions ranged from disapproval to tacit sympathy. In an increasingly hostile confrontation with the strikers, then-University President Morris Abrams offered the striking students amnesty for their actions, later retracting the offer and replacing it with threats of suspension.

Ford Hall was demolished in 1999 and the Shapiro Campus Center now sits in its place. The students ended their protest that same month without the immediate fulfillment of their demands, but today, many of them have been long-fulfilled.

"If I mention Ford Hall in a classroom, everyone knows what happened," said Prof. Gordon Fellman (SOC), who has taught at Brandeis since 1964.

Almost 40 years later, the sit-in is still telling of the racial tensions largely obscured by the University's liberal character. And there are still times such tensions come to the forefront.

Student hosts of a program on WBRS made disparaging on-air remarks about Asian women in 2002, and The Hoot, a campus newspaper, printed a racially charged poem titled "I hate you thugs" that inflamed students last year. As with Ford Hall, there was a perception among some white students during both affairs that the minorities involved were overreacting.

But no event in recent memory matches the conflict ignited when this newspaper printed an allusion to the most infamous of American racial slurs. In a 2003 sports column criticizing then-Chicago Cubs manager Dusty Baker, the author closed by quoting a student who later said he had never been interviewed:

"The only thing Dusty Baker has a Ph.D. in is something that starts with N and rhymes with Tigger, the cheerful scamp who stole all our hearts in the Winnie the Pooh series," the quote read.

The uproar on campus was immediate and fierce. The columnist was immediately fired, and editors struggled to manage what had been unleashed. When the Justice hosted a forum to discuss the issue, a row of mostly black students sitting at the front walked out when the sports editor took the microphone.

Ultimately, several editors, including the editor in chief, resigned under pressure from the administration. On the night before the Justice's next publication, the Brandeis Black Students Organization organized a protest outside the Justice office. The students succeeded in forcing the newspaper to delay printing so that BBSO could submit an op-ed piece that ran on the front page.

"Many members of the community take note of diversity" only when racial tensions boil over, said Prof. Govind Sreenivasan (HIST), who has studied coexistence on campus. "Diversity challenges aren't confined to these spectacular events."

Such events inevitably lead to self-examination by the University. Committees are formed, recommendations are made, some are followed. Examining various coexistence-oriented reports over the years, the similarities in their observations are striking.

But the debate inevitably subsides, and the racial tension returns to its familiar place beneath the surface.

In an article published in the Justice during the Ford Hall occupation, this reporter's father foreshadowed the difficulty of handling such issues.

"The repressive institution invites conflict, but the liberal institution may seek to mask it," the article said. "Such an institution, with the best of intentions, seeks to avoid or ameliorate conflict, by eliminating its surface manifestations.