The north campus and airfield were built in the early 1940s as Naval Air Station Norman. The station served mainly an advanced flight training mission and could handle all but the largest bombers. A large earthen mound east of Interstate 35 and north of Robinson Street, colloquially known as 'Mount Williams',[26] was used as a gunnery (the mound has since been removed to make way for a commercial development). In the post-World War II demobilization, the university received the installation. Naval aviator's wings displayed at the entrance to the terminal commemorates this airfield's Naval past.
After the war, enrollment surged. By 1965, enrollment had risen over 450% to 17,268, causing housing shortages. In the mid 1960s, the administration completed construction of three new 12-story dormitories located immediately south of the South Oval. In addition to these three towers, an apartment complex was completed that housed married students, including men returning to college under the GI Bill. These apartments are now Kraettli Apartments.
Bizzell Library sits at the heart of the university's Norman campus.
In 1943 George Lynn Cross took over as president of the University, two years after the U.S. entered World War II. He served until 1968, 25 years later, becoming the longest-serving president in history of the university. Five presidents served in the next 25 years. In 1994, the university hired a president who has stayed longer.
The university had policies of racial discrimination and segregation which were challenged and overturned in court cases. The Bizzell Memorial Library has been designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in commemoration of the cases of David McLaurin, a black man who was denied admission to graduate school in 1948. It was then state law that no school should serve both white and black students, but there were few or no separate graduate programs available for blacks. A court case effectively forced the Board of Regents to vote to admit McLaurin, but he was directed to study in a separated area within the law library and to be allowed to lunch only in a segregated area as well. The National Association for Advancement of Colored People brought the case to the U.S. Supreme court in McLaurin vs. Oklahoma State Board of Regents. In 1950, the court overturned the university's policy for segregation at the graduate school level. The case was an important precedent for the more famous and sweeping 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education which disallowed "separate but equal" policy at all school levels.
Since David Boren became Oklahoma's president in 1994, the University of Oklahoma system has had an increase in new developments throughout including: the purchase of 60 acres (0.2 km2) for OU-Tulsa, the new Gaylord Hall, Price Hall, the ExxonMobil Lawrence G. Rawl Engineering Practice Facility, Devon Energy Hall, the Wagner Student Academic Services Center, the Research and Medical Clinic, the expansions of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, and the National Weather Center
