Robert Docter, an L.A. college board member within the Nineteen Seventies who efficiently pushed to finish corporal punishment and who sacrificed his political profession making an attempt to combine campuses by means of busing, has died at 97.
Docter additionally taught for 56 years at Cal State Northridge and served for many years as a regional chief throughout the Salvation Military.
He died at dwelling in Northridge from what members of the family describe as neurological issues on Nov. 3.
“He at all times may see the likelihood for college students and their academics and their households,” mentioned Diane Watson, a former ally on the varsity board who went on to serve within the state Legislature and Congress. “You can comply with him since you knew that he selected to do the appropriate factor for the younger individuals.”
As a faculty board member from 1969 to 1977, Docter was most carefully recognized with two points — taking away the long-held proper of college workers to hit youngsters and making an attempt to rapidly and aggressively deal with the harms of segregation.
Docter had been a faculty board member for six years when he and allies, after a number of tries, pushed by means of a ban on corporal punishment — additionally known as spanking or paddling — by a 4-3 vote in 1975.
“It’s child-beating and we should always get rid of insurance policies that allow child-beating,” Docter mentioned. “Directors and academics shouldn’t be capable of do what a Marine Corps drill sergeant is prohibited from doing.”
On the time, an estimated 7% of California districts had banned corporal punishment, though Gov. Jerry Brown had simply signed a regulation requiring parental permission. Banning corporal punishment additionally had been a major demand of scholar and instructor activists who took half in widespread Latino scholar walkouts from L.A. colleges in 1968.
It took a number of years for the ban to take full impact as the varsity district developed different disciplinary strategies.
The problem stays unsettled. In 2023, then-U.S. Schooling Secretary Miguel Cardona wrote that “corporal punishment at school is both expressly allowed or not expressly prohibited in 23 states” and that “corporal punishment in colleges is probably going underreported.” Cardona referred to as for its use to finish.
Robert Docter is given a poll at Darby Avenue Faculty in Northridge in 1977, within the election that killed his political profession.
(Joe Kennedy / Los Angeles Occasions)
Battle over pressured busing
Docter’s efforts to advertise complete integration have been to fail.
As the varsity board president, Docter turned the face of the varsity system’s effort to hold out court-ordered, necessary integration, together with by means of pressured busing, which he supported as a social-justice crucial.
“I consider in a multicultural, multi-ethnic society,” he mentioned in a 1992 interview. “I used to be searching for smart methods to realize this.”
The dispute over busing divided the town, and was particularly opposed within the San Fernando Valley, the place Docter lived. Officers have been despatched to protect his dwelling amid dying threats.
“Folks have been anxious, confused,” Docter mentioned in 1992. “They have been involved concerning the lack of management: ‘I purchased my home on this neighborhood so my youngster may go to this college!’ They have been bitter. Many felt betrayed.”
There additionally was stress from the opposite aspect — with liberal activists together with future college board member Jackie Goldberg asserting that citywide integration needs to be the usual and might be mapped out to keep away from bus rides longer than 20 to half-hour. She was involved that Docter would weaken in his resolve, Goldberg recalled this week.
Docter remained agency.
In 1977, anti-busing father or mother activist Bobbi Fiedler ran in opposition to Docter, profitable 56% of the vote.
“He was the epitome of the left-wing, social-planning liberal,” Fiedler mentioned years later. “He was on the flawed aspect of the problem. He was out of contact.”
Docter mentioned later that busing “ought to have been launched on a voluntary foundation to dispel fears among the many majority inhabitants and resist white flight.”
In the end, the authorized and political panorama shifted and L.A. Unified — with court docket approval — developed voluntary integration that targeted considerably on magnet colleges, which have particular, fascinating packages and prioritize admissions that promote integration.
Restricted pressured busing barely ever began — and was by no means really carried out.
By then, nevertheless, 1000’s of white dad and mom had moved out of the district or pulled youngsters from Los Angeles public colleges, accelerating an evolution in demographics that already was in progress. White enrollment was 55% in 1963 — when the primary college desegregation swimsuit was filed — and 37% white in 1976 because the busing dispute peaked.
It stands at 10% right this moment — a slight improve over latest years — and stays closely concentrated in comparatively few areas.
Integration by means of busing “didn’t fail,” Docter mentioned later. “We simply by no means tried it.”
Salvation Military connection
Robert L. Docter was born July 20, 1928 in San Francisco to Lloyd and Violet Physician, who labored as Salvation Military pastors, and moved to L.A. in 1945 — and Docter graduated from Fairfax Excessive the next 12 months.
His connection to the Salvation Military was to be lifelong. He met his future spouse, Dolores Diane Beecher, at a Salvation Military summer time camp. They married in 1953.
He performed within the Military band for greater than 70 years, marching in its Match of Roses band greater than 50 instances. He led open-air companies on the nook of Hollywood and Vine.
In 1983, he based New Frontier Publications for the Salvation Military, serving as editor till 2017. On this function, he additionally wrote greater than 600 columns. His writing turned “a companion to 1000’s, providing wit, knowledge and religious honesty” the Salvation Military wrote in a tribute.
“He invited us to see the world by means of a lens of hope, sincerity and conscience,” wrote Christin Thieme, his successor as editor. “He believed deeply within the energy of phrases, sure — however much more within the energy of the character behind them.
in 1992, the group admitted him to the Order of the Founder, the very best honor bestowed by the Salvation Military to a lay member.
Robert Docter sits on the curb in entrance of Darby Avenue Faculty, throughout from his Northridge dwelling within the early Nineties.
(George Wilhelm / Los Angeles Occasions)
A bond with native colleges
After his dad and mom took the household to L.A., Docter attended native public colleges, graduating from Fairfax Excessive.
He earned a bachelor’s diploma in English from UCLA in 1952 after which in 1956 a grasp’s in training from USC, and a doctorate in academic psychology from the college in 1960.
He additionally served within the U.S. Military from 1952 to 1954, stationed at Fort Ord in Monterey, and performed trumpet within the sixth Infantry Division Band. After that, he taught at Vanalden Elementary in Tarzana for six years whereas incomes his superior levels.
In 1960 he Joined the training college of San Fernando Valley State School — which later turned Cal State Northridge.
Dr. Docter — as he was extensively identified — was an affiliate professor of training and a father of youngsters within the public colleges in 1969, when he turned certainly one of 21 candidates for 3 board seats, saying that the state’s largest college system too usually maintained an unsatisfactory established order reasonably than updating its educational strategies.
On the board, he turned an ardent L.A. Unified defender whereas additionally pushing for change. He referred to as out fellow board member J.C. Chambers as “racist” when The Occasions quoted Chambers saying he didn’t wish to “combine the races” and made different derogatory feedback about Black college students.
Though Docter staunchly supported union bargaining rights, he had a falling-out with the academics union that undermined his doomed reelection marketing campaign. He misplaced the union endorsement after supporting a plan to combine academics in addition to college students — which might have resulted in some pressured reassignments.
He wrote three books: “A View from the Nook” (2008), alluding to the identify of his common column, “Integrity: A Full Life” (2015) and a novel, “Misplaced and Discovered
in Montana” (2022).
Docter didn’t run for workplace after leaving the varsity board.
He “didn’t have political ambitions,” mentioned daughter Sharon Docter. “He simply cared about training. This was his ardour. … What he wished was to make a distinction.”
He continued to ponder the state of education, expressing qualms about decreasing training to numbers on standardized assessments. As a substitute, he mentioned in interviews, there needs to be extra emphasis on ethics and morality in addition to essential considering and humanities training.
He’s survived by his twin brother, Richard F. Docter. His spouse of 71 years died on April 27. Different survivors are six youngsters — Sharon in addition to Richard L. Docter, Janet Pollock, Mary Docter, John Docter and Julie Jennings — 15 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren.
A celebration of life will likely be held on the Salvation Military Pasadena Tabernacle Corps on Sunday, Dec. 7, at 2 p.m.
