Protest Season on the Campus

EVEN as it widened the war in Southeast Asia, the Nixon Administration chose to further estrange itself from the nation's campuses. Vice President Spiro Agnew, speaking to Republicans in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., unleashed another blunderbuss attack on colleges as "circus tents or psychiatric centers for overprivileged, under-disciplined, irresponsible children of the well-to-do blase permissivists" (see box, following page). President Nixon, in an impromptu talk at the Pentagon, referred to radical students as "these bums blowing up the campuses" and contrasted them with G.I.s fighting in Viet Nam: "the greatest kids--they stand tall and they are proud." The distinction between the two is fashioned, of course, as much by the whims of the draft as by personal choice. Still, soldiers and students last week faced each other head-on in several places as campus protests again broke out with a vengeance across the U.S.

With the arrival of spring's best weather in much of the nation, campus unrest was abloom almost everywhere, from Caltech, which had known almost no demonstrations, to the University of Maryland, where police and National Guardsmen waged pitched battles with protesters. Early in the week the issues included almost any notion that radicals could use to challenge administrations or to try to provoke a confrontation. There were demonstrations seeking more black students, protests against ROTC, fights for greater student influence over university policy. But after the President announced the dispatch of U.S. troops into Cambodia, the overriding issue became the war. Many university presidents joined the protesters, in sentiment if not in physical action. Even the relatively moderate National Student Association issued a call for the impeachment of Richard Nixon.

At Yale University in New Haven, where Cambodia was only a last-minute addition to a broad May Day protest over judicial and police treatment of Black Panthers, some 4,000 U.S. Marines and paratroopers were deployed for quick response to any violence. Contending that the Panthers and Weathermen faction of S.D.S. were moving dynamite and demolition experts into the college town, one federal official warned beforehand that there would likely be "racial violence, widespread destruction and even assassination at New Haven." An explosion did shatter glass in a Yale building, and a mild clash broke out between demonstrators and local police, backed by National Guardsmen. But Yale did not prove to be the holocaust that many had feared. Some Panthers even joined Yale students to intercede between bottle throwers and cops wielding tear gas. All in all, Yale's concerned but overwhelmingly nonradical students served as calm hosts to some 12,000 demonstrators for a generally pleasant weekend of rock music and radical rhetoric.

Wiser to Cooperate. The Yale situation, though a potentially dangerous one, was widely misunderstood from the beginning by Government officials and even by some of the self-styled revolutionaries who hurried into New Haven. To many, it looked like a case of one of the nation's most scholarly institutions suddenly closing up shop in its devotion to Panther principles, egged on by a leftist university president. The May Day rally, in fact, was neither proposed nor encouraged by Yale. It was announced by the Chicago Seven, the Panthers and the Panther Defense Committee because eight Panthers, including National Chairman Bobby Scale, are on trial in New Haven for kidnaping, murder or conspiracy (see following story). Since the rally was scheduled for the town Green in front of the courthouse, and the university adjoins the Green, Yale decided that it might become a target of protest if it tried to keep the expected large crowds off campus. It seemed wiser to cooperate and open the gates to all comers.

Yale's involvement also stemmed from what many students on campus considered grossly unfair treatment of two of the Panther leaders, David Hilliard and Emory Douglas, both of whom were sentenced to six months in jail by Judge Harold Mulvey when a small scuffle broke out in the courtroom during pretrial hearings. (The judge later accepted the Panthers' apology and reduced the sentence to one week.) Some 400 Yale students met in Harkness Hall, discussed the trial and linked it to what they considered similar prejudiced action by Judge Julius Hoffman in the Chicago conspiracy trial. They voted to seek an immediate, open-ended "moratorium" of classes to permit the entire university to study the issues raised by the trial in their midst--mainly the treatment of political dissidents by police and the courts. They vaguely hoped that the university could apply pressure to ensure a fair trial. There was no effort to endorse the Panthers' political beliefs or tactics, though the notion of an indefinite moratorium on classwork was exaggerated partisanship, considering the larger problems facing the U.S.

Yale President Kingman Brewster Jr. appointed a committee to consider the university's reaction to the trial, but did not personally endorse the moratorium concept, contending that a university should remain neutral on political issues. Black faculty members thereupon got together and protested Brewster's action as "an evasion of responsibility." Black members of the committee withdrew, claiming that they were being used "as buffers to neutralize a dangerous and immediate situation." Some 1,500 students attended a "teach-in" at which New Haven Panther Leader Doug Miranda urged them: "Take your power and use it to move the institution--that Panther and that Bulldog are going to move together."

Carefully Skeptical. Pushed by blacks on and off campus, who have long complained about the university's employment practices and building plans, the moratorium movement grew. At a rally of 4,500 students and faculty, Panther Milliard was jeered when he suggested "killing pigs." "All right, boo me, I knew you were racist," he replied. Black students cheered him on --and that was a turning point. Explained one white student: "When our black friends erupted in support of Milliard for calling us racist, I could feel the white students cringing [with guilt]. I know I did." The meeting shouted approval of the strike. Next day, class attendance was down to about one-third of normal.

A strike committee was formed and drew up several demands, all of which were drastically altered by the full faculty. The faculty urged the creation of a commission to guide Yale's relations with blacks in New Haven, as well as an agreement that the university must replace any housing facilities it displaces as it expands and a suspension of normal class requirements during the strike --an apparent luxury at the end of an academic year. Brewster, who had helped shape the faculty proposals, then approved them. He also indicated his sympathy for the students' concern about the trial. "I am skeptical of the ability of black revolutionaries to achieve a fair trial anywhere in the U.S.," he said. As the furor over that sweeping and injudicious statement grew, Brewster explained only that he had "chosen the word skeptical very carefully."

The attack upon Brewster was led by Vice President Agnew, who claimed that Yale students cannot get "a fair impression of their country under the tutelage of Kingman Brewster," and that "it is clearly time for the alumni of that fine old college to demand that it be headed by a more mature and responsible person." Agnew also misrepresented the position of the Yale faculty as supporting "an organization dedicated to criminal violence, anarchy and the destruction of the United States."

Ironically, Agnew's blast only reinforced Brewster's high prestige on his own campus and among his presidential peers on other campuses. Some 3,000 students quickly signed a petition backing him. Yale Corporation Member William Horowitz, chairman of the Connecticut State Board of Education and a Democrat, showed how most of the university regards Brewster. Horowitz acidly complained in a letter to Agnew: "I frankly do not believe that your experience as a president of a P.T.A. chapter qualifies you to evaluate the contributions to education by the most distinguished university president in the U.S." Some alumni, however, thought Brewster had gone too far. Said one irate occupant of Manhattan's Yale Club: "I'm sure the governing board will act quickly to obtain his resignation. Instead of being a leader, he has stooped to the level of the students."

Brewster earned high marks for transforming Yale from an elitist institution for the conventional education of affluent prep school graduates into an innovative coeducational campus, where more than 50% of the students get financial aid--and he gets credit for doing it without lowering graduation standards in the process. Brewster has also long held views that Agnew could applaud, such as his concern that "physical disruption and intimidation from the New Left" pose a "frontal challenge" to universities, and that "reason must be honored above the clash of crude and noisy enthusiasms and antipathies." He has argued that "the teacher who holds no convictions is a neuter," but "the teacher who sees his classroom as an opportunity for missionary indoctrination is an outrage."

Assassination. In a rare unity forged by their support of Brewster, Yale's faculty and students worked together to examine the Panther issue without violence. Some 200 students fanned out into New Haven to try to convince townspeople that the Panther trial poses the threat of political repression. "We don't necessarily support the Panther ideology--we are concerned about Bobby Scale and his companions in jail in California getting a fair trial," explained a member of the strike committee. Professors deviated from their teaching plans to concentrate on the related issues. A psychology course examined the psychology of racism, seminars were held on such subjects as "The Law of Conspiracy," "Race and Class Conflict in Modern Society," "Language and Revolution." Signs were plastered everywhere urging KEEP THE PEACE and warning that VIOLENCE IS THE TOOL OF FASCISM. The residential colleges opened their courtyards for the bedding down of visitors. The university provided slim but sustaining meals of salad and rice for all comers.

In Washington, the probability of violence was stressed. High officials of the Justice Department, the Army, the FBI and the Secret Service held a strategy meeting, concluding that some 20,000 to 50,000 demonstrators would head for New Haven, including 2,000 violence-prone "militants." This led to a recommendation by Attorney General John Mitchell that federal troops be dispatched. After Connecticut Governor John Dempsey formally requested them, they were sent to Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts and Quonset Point Naval Air Station in Rhode Island to be ready. About 2,500 Connecticut National Guardsmen were ordered into New Haven.

Festive and Boring. On May Day morning, New Haven had the tense, electric air of the street in High Noon. Many businesses were boarded up. But only about 12,000 demonstrators appeared, most of them college students from other college campuses and some teen-agers who were apparently attracted as much by the anticipation of an outing as by the cause. Few seemed really anxious for a confrontation. An 18-year-old youth en route to New Haven from New York City was asked why he was going. "You know, the Panthers are being oppressed," he explained halfheartedly. "Well," he added, "it's exciting. I want to see it." When about 50 S.D.S. radicals tried to organize a march on New Haven's city hall, they could only muster about 300 followers and gave up short of their target. Most of the visitors seemed sympathetic to radical causes, but were not bomb-throwing revolutionaries. A 34-year-old housewife from Boston, who would only give her first name, Sandra, explained that she could not quite see herself starting any violence, but added: "I certainly wouldn't go around putting out any fires." A Harvard senior argued that "one just should be here, not to trash or fight but to be on the right side."

The rally was mostly festive and occasionally a bit boring. Strategically placed loudspeakers blasted Beatle music and many demonstrators danced. Even some of the radical orators sounded uncommonly reasonable. David Dellinger pleaded for more tolerance within the movement. "Just because a guy is a step to the left or to the right of you doesn't mean he's a pig or a counterrevolutionary," he argued. Abbie Hoffman drew shouts of "Right on!" when he declared that "if the U.S. has lost face in Viet Nam, it is going to lose its ass in Cambodia." He could hardly be taken literally when he also vowed: "If they find Bobby, Erica and the Panthers guilty, we're going to pick up that building [the courthouse] and send it to the moon." Even Panther Miranda declared that it was not a time "to kill pigs. When you walk around the campus tonight, walk hiply, walk quietly."

That advice was partly forgotten in one of the few ugly moments of May Day. After dark, a crowd of about 1,500 visitors faced a line of massed police and Guardsmen. They began throwing bottles and rocks, caught tear gas in return and dispersed after about an hour of confrontation. Seventeen demonstrators were arrested by the police, who never once charged into the crowd or swung clubs. Yale students wearing yellow headbands and some Panther marshals kept urging the rock throwers to move off the Green and back onto the campus. "There's nothing you can do here but hurt my people!" shouted one young black. Two bombs later exploded simultaneously in Yale's Ingalls Hockey Rink, shattering windows and doors. There were no serious injuries.

Next day there were more rebellious speakers, including Jerry Rubin, who failed to get a crowd to join in a chant assailing Brewster. He settled for a rhythmic plea to "Free Bobby Scale." The day was uneventful, although police employed tear gas to disperse one lingering crowd on the Green. A small fire was squelched in one leftist political center. A Panther sound truck kept appealing throughout the night to "keep your heads on your shoulders--this is no time for foolish actions."

Other campuses across the U.S. suffered much greater violence during the week. In a wholly unexpected eruption at Ohio State University, a relatively small group of activists on the 45,000-student campus managed to escalate into a near riot the recent arrest of six students during a peaceful demonstration against military and industrial recruiting on campus. The fighting, with some shooting, continued sporadically for two days. When the battle was over, 640 people had been arrested, 130 protesters and officers were injured, and some 1,800 National Guardsmen had been called out. Eleven of the injured demonstrators sustained gunshot wounds. Police reported that they had fired $15,000 worth of tear gas.

At Berkeley, which has been relatively quiet recently, another ROTC protest made that campus look as chaotic as ever. For two days, groups of up to a thousand demonstrators, many of them off-campus "street people," including high school students, smashed windows and fought police.

A protest against ROTC activities at Stanford turned into two nights of clashes between demonstrators and police in which dozens of officers and 16 students were injured. The hostilities began as police tried to clear a building occupied by the demonstrators. The protesters first assaulted police with rocks, then the cops beat up some students in retaliation. The clashes grew more violent after a campus rally protesting the use of U.S. troops in Cambodia, and the two related issues were joined. Many windows were shattered by roving bands, which would be dispersed by tear gas at one point, only to regroup later. After dark, three shotgun blasts were fired by someone in a car at the home of Colonel Stanley Ramey, Stanford's ROTC commander. No one was hurt. Stanford President Kenneth Pitzer called the violence "unfortunate, senseless and tragic"--while conceding that he regarded U.S. involvement in Cambodia "a mistake of the gravest kind."

Slimmer of Hope. Even campuses where protest had been shunned in the past were stirred by the Cambodian action. Science-oriented Caltech experienced its first antiwar demonstration when about 250 students rallied to hear professors assail the new U.S. involvement. Some students marched into downtown Pasadena, urging residents to protest by mail to the White House. An angrier mood prevailed at the University of Maryland, where some 500 students charged into the campus Air Force ROTC building after the Nixon speech. They burned uniforms, smashed typewriters, threw files out of windows and caused at least $10,000 worth of damage. Several thousand students joined the others in blocking U.S. Highway 1 for 40 minutes. Police finally sought the help of National Guardsmen to break it up. At Kent State University in Ohio, 500 students set fires and damaged automobiles in a rampage along Kent's Main Street. The one-story ROTC building was burned to the ground. Fifteen protesters were arrested at Southern Illinois University after several hundred broke windows and battled cops. ROTC ceremonies were forcibly disrupted at the University of Iowa and Purdue. A rally at Indiana University drew a surprising 1,500 students.

The tone of campus protest has turned sharply more violent since antiwar sentiment was last at its peak on the nation's campuses when the Johnson Administration was in office. Last week's surge of new activity looms as an ominous threat to the possibility of restoring order in the colleges this spring. The only glimmer of hope may be that the academic year will end at most schools within a few weeks.

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