User:Pilewteub/Philip L. White

New article name is Philip L. White

Philip Lloyd "Phil" White (31 July 1923 - 15 October 2009) was an American history academic and [civil community] organizer. A tenured professor of early American history at the University of Texas at Austin from the 1960s through 2000, White is acknowlegded by many Austinites to have been a primary architect of "the Democratic grass-roots political activism that transformed Austin politics in the late 1960s and early '70s.

According to long-time Austin political consultant Peck Young, a former UT student and White mentee circa 1968-71, Prof. White "made it possible for a lot of people to be elected and to do things to change this city," (Austin) from being "a Confederate capital into being something more progressive." A former community organizer with the West Side (Manhattan) branch of [Americans for Democratic Action] while earning a PhD in colonial American history at Columbia University under the supervision of Alan Nevins, White essentially brought neighborhood civic groups to the American south. Between 1968-71, Prof. White founded the Tarrytown Democrats, the [West Austin Democrats] and served as Faculty Advisor to the UT [Young Democrats], while also serving on the Travis County Democratic Executive Committe, and Chairing the UT [Department of History] during the summer months. He was thus in a rare position to oversee both the nascent [neighborhood groups] and the new [student movements] that were then forming in the wake of widespread Civil Rights and Vietnam War protests. Even before the adopting of the 26th Amendment in 1971, a "first-ever political coalition" in Austin had been formed, joining "white liberals, minorities and students who had not been politically active before" in an amalgamation that opened up the city's formerly oligarchic-traditional politics.

According to Peck Young, now director of the [Center for Public Policy & Political Studies] at Austin Community College, White provided vital support within the university for his group's registration of more than 40,000 new student voters in central Austin from 1971-72 (in a city of then only approx. 250,000 people, and less than 100,000 regular voters). From approximately 1970-75, local school board, city council, judicial, and state legislature offices changed hands across the board, until nearly all elected offices in Travis County were in the hands of the new coalition, and other Texans started to refer to the capital as 'the People's Republic of Austin'. In addition to Mr. Young, Prof. White also advised a generation of Texas liberals hailing from UT Austin circa 1970, including Gonzalo Barrientos, Sarah Weddington, Ronnie Earle, Bruce Elfant, Larry Bales, and (future US Congressman) Lloyd Doggett.

Due to family concerns, White had largely faded out of county politics by the mid-1970s, although he continued advising student political groups and organizing the [Texas Association of College Teachers] (TACT). It was also during the early-to-mid-'70s that the University of Texas Board of Regents shifted, from the Chairmanship of Frank Erwin to that of former Texas governor Allan Shivers. In 1975 White and a number of other politically active UT Austin professors "sued the university and President Lorene Rogers, alleging they were denied full salary increases for which they had been recommended in 1975 in retaliation for their political activities," according to White's then-attorney, David Richards, husband of future Texas governor Ann Richards.

Although a Texas district court initially ruled in favor of the University, White's appeal that he had been discriminated against in regards to First Amendment faculty rights was approved by the US 5th Circuit Court in 1981: ''The plaintiffs alleged that this salary action was taken in     retaliation against their exercise of their first amendment right to freedom of speech and association. After a bench trial, the district court ruled that the plaintiffs were not entitled to the requested injunctive, declaratory, and monetary relief. Contending that the district court's finding that the plaintiffs had failed to     prove retaliatory intent was clearly erroneous, three of the plaintiffs, Professors White, Gavenda, and Shepley, now bring this appeal. We find that the district court's decision was clearly erroneous only with respect to plaintiff-appellant White.''