Kent State: Another View

A special Ohio grand jury met quietly for almost a month in a country courthouse to appraise criminal responsibility for last May's rioting and killing at Kent State University. Last week the jury found the National Guard innocent, indicted 25 others and accused the school's administration of surrendering the campus to violent radicals through years of "laxity, overindulgence and permissiveness." The findings brought from Martin Scheuer, whose daughter was one of the dead, the anguished response: "I have lost faith in justice in America." Another slain student's father, Bernard Miller, said: "You mean you can get away with murder in this country?"

The legality of the shootings remains an open question, since federal action against some Guardsmen is still possible. But it was clear that some of the jury's key conclusions conflicted in whole or in part with those of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which made an exhaustive investigation of the tragedy, and the President's Commission on Campus Unrest, headed by former Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton. In New Haven, Police Chief James Ahern, a member of the Scranton commission, said flatly that the grand jury's findings concerning the Guardsmen were "inconsistent with the facts." On the Kent State campus, students held a peaceful rally and some were raising funds for the defense of those indicted. The names of the accused will not become known until this week, but they are expected to include students and nonstudent youths alike.

The 15-man special jury, sitting in Ravenna, six miles from the campus, heard more than 300 witnesses, and had available to it both the Scranton and FBI reports. The grand jurors saw what happened this way:

THE MAY 4 DEMONSTRATION. A noon rally on the campus common was held despite a ban; orders to disperse were ignored and "caused a violent reaction ... It is obvious that if the order to disperse had been heeded, there would not have been the consequences of that fateful day. Those who acted as participants and agitators are guilty of deliberate, criminal conduct."

By contrast, the Scranton commission's special report on ' Kent State --which noted that it was avoiding any assessment of guilt in order not to impede criminal investigations--called the decision to disperse the then peaceful rally "a serious error," and the manner in which it was done "disastrous." THE SHOOTINGS. The grand jury was critical of the Guard's commanders at Kent State for placing their men in danger. But of the Guardsmen who actually did the shooting, the jury said: "They fired their weapons in the honest and sincere belief and under circumstances which would have logically caused them to believe that they would suffer serious bodily injury had they not done so. They are not, therefore, subject to criminal prosecution under the laws of this state."

The FBI said that the shootings "were not necessary and not in order"; the Guardsmen were not surrounded and not in real danger.

THE UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION. The jury said bluntly: "We find that the major responsibility for the incidents occurring on the Kent State University campus on May 2, 3 and 4 rests clearly with those persons who are charged with the administration of the university." It charged that ineffective policies over a period of years had rendered the uni versity "totally incapable of reacting ... in any effective manner." The university, the jury found, "can no longer regulate the activities of either [students or faculty] and is particularly vulnerable to any pressure applied from radical elements." The Scranton commission, while avoiding direct critical comment on the school's administrators, noted that Kent State President Robert White had been on a trip out of the state during two of the four days of rioting. At the time of the shooting, he was having lunch off campus.

THE FACULTY. The grand jury ranged into the classroom in its report, condemning unnamed teachers who "devote entire periods" to urging students to oppose the Government. In one instance, a student who defended the flag was allegedly ridiculed in public by his professor.

The Scranton commission did not address itself to the activities of the minority group of faculty members described by the jury. It did say that teachers did little or nothing to halt the disturbances, although some informally constituted themselves as marshals. One who watched, helpless, as the ROTC building burned, told the commission: "I have never in my 17 years of teaching seen a group of students as threatening, or as arrogant, or as bent on destruction." THE FUTURE. The jury, citing recent meetings at the university, said that "all the conditions that led to the May tragedy still exist." Referring to two Yippie rallies last week, the jury said: "What disturbs us is that any such group of intellectual and social misfits should be afforded the opportunity to disrupt the affairs of a major university to the detriment of the vast majority of students." Radical domination on campus will continue, the jury said, until citizens and the campus community "take a strong stand." The jury added: "The time has come to detach from university society those who persist in violent behavior. Expel the troublemakers without fear or favor. Evict from the campus those persons bent on disorder."

The Scranton commission also saw the need to learn from what it called the unnecessary tragedy of Kent State, but it found basic lessons in the events for the Guard as well as for the students and the university. It said: "The actions of some students were violent and criminal and those of some others were dangerous, reckless and irresponsible. The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted and inexcusable."

The grand jury report, according to Special Prosecutor Robert Balyeat, was based on "far more evidence" than that available to the Scranton commission. The jury had reopened not only the specific controversy over the events at Kent State, but also the general debate over the causes and cure of disorders on the nation's campuses.

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