Spring20_Mag_Combined_WEB_single_pages

1970 VIKING YEARBOOK 1970 was the year the Gay Liberation Front held its first meeting, Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG) was conceived, Black Studies officially launched and a new women’s union formed, laying the groundwork for what would soon become the Women’s Resource Center and Women’s Studies. Four years later, the city permanently closed the streets around the PSU Park Blocks to traffic in the same spots where students placed their barricades. “They were generating lots of news,” Bernt says, “and we were right in the middle of it.” The DAY AFTER police clashed with protestors, The Oregonian reported that 3,500 people marched down Southwest Broadway from PSU to City Hall to protest the brutal police tactics. Even some of those who disagreed with the strike thought the police had gone too far. But they also worried Portland and PSU were gaining national attention for the wrong reasons. At a large meeting of faculty and spouses, history professor David A. Horowitz, then in his second year, made a plea for donations to help cover the injured students’ medical expenses. He had witnessed the police violence and felt it was gratuitous. Horowitz was booed loudly. Some faculty members supported the strike but most did not, because they feared state leaders would cut support for the new university, he says. “It was surprising how angry they were,” he says. “I was pretty shaken.” Doug Weiskopf was one of the students on the front lines when officers charged. They clubbed him on his head and stomped on his back in heavy boots. “We thought it was our job to make people face what was going on in Vietnam,” he says. “We were predominantly middle-class white kids, and we were as middle America as it gets. We were the people they thought supported them. Four years after the strike, the city permanently closed the streets around the Park Blocks to traffic in the same spots where students placed their barricades. SEPTEMBER Under the leadership of W. Philip McLaurin, Black Studies offers its first classes in fall term, including “Peoples and Cultures of Africa,” “Introductory Swahili” and “Afro- American Poetry.” OCTOBER PSU students begin organizing the grassroots advocacy organization Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG)—the second in the nation when established—and set up a campus chapter to address environmental and consumer issues. NOVEMBER 18 Five members of the newly formed Portland State Gay Liberation Front speak about stereotyping and discrimination in front of a capacity crowd. SEPTEMBER The Women’s Union forms to work for women’s rights on campus. Nancy Hoffman, English faculty, and Nona Glazer Malbin, sociology faculty, begin designing a Women’s Studies program. The first classes are offered winter term 1971. SEPTEMBER 17 Women organize their second “Baby- In” to demand campus child care, bringing 77 children to President Wolfe’s residence. The Portland State Child Care Center—now the Helen Gordon Child Development Center— opens a few months later. NOVEMBER Students create the College Resources Information Program to provide resources for students with disabilities and work to convince the University—and the state legislature—to make the campus accessible. 17