By James Vorosmarti Jr. ’57

EASTON, Pa.(www.lafayette.edu), July 18, 2007 — When I entered Lafayette in 1953, there was little student concern about civil rights. The student body was more interested in getting a college education and having fun while doing so. We were also more interested in watching Joe McCarthy make himself look like an idiot, although most of America believed him.

Things began to change shortly. Some rumblings began among the student body about the lack of non-Protestant and black students on campus, but no demonstrations or things of that sort occurred. In 1955, a member of the faculty proposed a resolution outlawing discriminatory clause for religion, race or color in fraternity constitutions, perhaps because of the recent Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

Also that year, Phi Kappa Tau, the fraternity to which I belonged, decided to pledge two black freshmen, Edward Washington ’59 and Victor Partridge ’59, because we liked them and wanted them to be brothers. We were unaware of any clause in the national Phi Kappa Tau constitution discriminating against any specific group of people. We soon heard from our national office that they were very upset; they cited a “gentleman’s agreement” which stated that no chapter should pledge anyone who might cause embarrassment to any other chapter or brother. We also heard vociferously from one chapter alumnus who appeared at the house one day in a rage about what we had done and threatened to have the chapter alumni council take all the furnishings out of the house if we went ahead with it. Luckily, the members of our alumni chapter were very supportive, encouraging us and ignoring him.

Visits by various officials of the national office, including the president, were made to convince us to keep Washington and Partridge as social members and not full brothers. The chapter unanimously voted not to do so.

We presented our case to the National Convention in June 1956. Unfortunately, we were voted down, 46 to 36. In the fall of 1956 the chapter, including the new pledges, voted unanimously to resign from Phi Kappa Tau and set up a local fraternity. On Oct. 23, 1956, we resigned and became Delta Sigma, the name of the fraternity that had become Phi Kappa Tau in 1928.

We did not stand alone on this issue. In April 1956, the Academic Council published a resolution to abolish all social organizations that had local or national constitutions restricting race, religion or color. The Lafayette Inter-fraternity Council voted to back any fraternity that adjusted accordingly. About this time the local chapter of Theta Chi voted to repeal the Caucasian clause in its national constitution and, along with the Lehigh chapter of Theta Chi, sent letters to all chapters urging them that they should be free to accept anyone they chose based solely on their merits as a person. Also, on Oct. 23, the faculty published a recommendation that “no social fraternity should have continued recognition by Lafayette College whose local chapter is not free to elect to membership any individual on the basis of his merit as a person.” On Oct. 26, 1956, The Lafayette published an editorial noting the desire for change in liberalization of social fraternity memberships and asked the college administration to take a stand on the issue. It also published an article about our chapter going local and noted that President Ralph Cooper Hutchison had given his assurances to our president, Robert Rios ’57, that we would be allowed to remain on campus as a local fraternity.

Within a few years, Phi Kappa Tau and other national fraternities had made the appropriate constitutional changes and Delta Sigma again became a chapter of Phi Kappa Tau.

I do not think that any of us at the time thought we were civil rights activists -- we just wanted the right to have as brothers people with whom we wanted to associate. I guess you could say that we were fighting for our own civil rights. We also never realized how far-reaching this would be for the College itself. I am still very proud of my fraternity brothers at the time, the alumni who supported us, and the College faculty and administration.

It was also an enlightening experience for us to have blacks living in the house and learning firsthand about both the subtle and obvious discrimination directed toward blacks, particularly in the South. None of us had ever lived or been in close quarters with blacks in our lives before then. While we knew about segregated schools, most of us had never heard of “Whites Only” water fountains and toilets, having to ride at the back of a bus, or being refused entry to a restaurant, hotel or store. These things were not being addressed in the press at all and learning about them certainly sensitized us to these issues.

We also found out about “reverse” discrimination. In downtown Easton one evening, several of us were approached by some young blacks who wanted to know, in an unfriendly way, why either Washington or Partridge (I don’t remember which was with us at the time) was hanging around with “honkies.” The reply was that “They are my brothers.” One never forgets an experience such as that.

We have often been asked why we pledged blacks. They were pledged for the same reasons that anyone else was: They were personable, appeared to get along well with the rest of us, were intelligent, and seemed to belong. It was not a conscious effort to pledge blacks or strike out at discrimination. We felt they would be assets to our fraternity. As far as I remember, neither had any obvious problems integrating into the life of the fraternity socially. I certainly hope that is true. They certainly learned that not all whites thought blacks were a subclass of society and treated them as such.

Biology graduate James Vorosmarti Jr. ’57 earned an MD from Jefferson Medical College in 1961, then served 26 years in the U.S. Navy. After an internship at Portsmouth VA Naval Hospital, he completed diving school, submarine school, and nuclear reactor training. He served on the USS Jack and USS John Adams, followed by a tour as senior medical officer at the Submarine Base, Pearl Harbor. He was next assigned to the Navy Deep Submergence Project and was an aquanaut on SEALAB III, after which he completed a post-doctoral fellowship in environmental physiology at University of Buffalo.

He was selected to be an exchange officer with the Royal Navy and directed its program in deep diving research for three years at the Institute of Naval Medicine and Royal Naval Physiological Laboratory. While in that capacity he was also liaison officer for medical research for the Office of Naval Research, London.

Upon returning to the United States, Vorosmarti was assigned as executive officer of the Naval Medical Research Institute, followed by a tour as program director for diving and submarine medical research and then as commanding officer of the Naval Medical Research Institute. His last assignment while in the Navy was as special assistant for medical and life sciences in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. During his Navy career, he served on many national and international committees dealing not only with diving and submarines, but also other areas such as biotechnology and organ transplantation.

After retiring from the Navy, Vorosmarti was self-employed as a consultant in environmental and occupational medicine, serving the Office of Naval Research, University of Alabama School of Medicine, Food and Drug Administration, Office of Personnel Management, and Smithsonian Institute. He has been consultant to several diving and oil companies abroad and in the United States and has been a frequent lecturer nationally and internationally. He is the author of many research publications and chapters in medical texts, and still serves as a reviewer for two medical journals. He also publishes in the history of diving technology.