4 - A Hammer in a Velvet Glove

Summary

Following years of slowly and methodically building rapport with her board colleagues, Claudia Hampton was able to translate the social capital she had cultivated into increased soft power that she used in circumventing process obstacles, influencing and shaping policy, and effectively changing the organizational culture of the CSU Board of Trustees from within. This chapter details how Claudia Hampton used the power and influence that she had skillfully acquired in her earliest days on the board, including downplaying her race and playing to the gender norm of the day, to assist the CSU system in the implementation and expansion of its affirmative action program for students, faculty, and staff.

On May 23, 1979, in his final speech as the chair of the California State University Board of Trustees, Roy T. Brophy, a stocky-built white man who made millions in construction in Northern California, stood before the audi-ence gathered at the CSU Board offices in Los Angeles and closed his address with this: “A woman I have known and respected and loved for many years is our new chair. She will be known as the first black and the first woman chair of this or any other major university board of trustees. But she is more than that—she is a person with special sensitivity, special abilities, and special gifts; I am sure we will gain something in sharing them with her in the now future, Chair Dr. Claudia Hampton.” Brophy's somewhat clumsy attempt to mark the historic nature of the election of Dr. Claudia Hampton as just the second African American trustee and the first woman board chair for the California State University Board of Trustees takes on even greater importance when some months later on July 18, 1979, Dr. Hampton stood before the members of board to give her first address as chair. Hampton thanked her peers for the opportunity to serve as their leader and laid out her broad vision for the board during her term in office, never mentioning that she was the embodiment of history in the making. Hampton's silence on the significance of her race and gender in her appointment was characteristic of how she handled herself as a trustee and later as board chair when dealing with race and gender matters within the CSU system.