40 years ago: KU homecoming committee questions queen’s selection process

Kansas University students were not going to select a homecoming queen for 1970. According to a statement by the homecoming committee, it was “inappropriate in a multi-cultural environment such as a university to select one or a group of young women to represent that community.” In a statement made prior to the committee’s decision, Chancellor Laurence Chalmers had said that the selection of a homecoming queen was “certainly not related to our most fundamental purposes” and that he would like to see homecoming “distinguished by a speech of last year’s choice of a distinguished professor and that this would become one of the most important events – one that alumni would try desperately to attend.” Members of the senior class were scheduled to choose the HOPE award recipient on Oct. 17, but the chair of the selection committee was unavailable for comment on the feasibility of conferring the award at homecoming halftime.