Winter/Spring 1991 RAIN Page 41 The draft made students study the war. The Student Body President visited Hanoi. The campus paper published endless essays and articles about the war. One of the faculty, John Froines, was on trial as one of the Chicago Eight. It became clear to many that the US was fighting against the vast majority of the Vietnamese people, and slaughtering them ostensibly for an economic philosophy. But how can students stop an establishment out of control? Academic buildings became territory in the battle against the system. The massive, ugly science complex, built as part of the huge reaction to Sputnik, became symbols of technological apd corporate devastation just as Apollo 13, also Sputnik spawn, came limping back to the first Earth Day. That April22 saw a massive sit-in at the Administration Building, Johnson Hall. The Earth Day sit-in ended with the arrival of the Police, Sheriff and National Guard. Tear gas was used against a gathering, curious crowd. Jack Nicholson, on campus directing Drive, He Said after his Easy Rider success, filmed the riot and had one of his actors play at leading students into the fray. Sixty-one students were arrested that night, and Jack promised to bail them out. He reneged. The street in front of Johnson Hall was then barricaded from traffic by protesters. Most people thought this was a good idea. Oregon was the only University in the country where a student might be killed by a log truck while walking between classes. After negotiating with the city, the street stayed closed permanently. At the end of April, when Nixon approved the invasion of Cambodia, another sit-in at Johnson hall, riots, fires and cancelled concerts were in the news. Then, on May 4, four student protestors were shot by the National Guard at Kent State. Two days of protest later, the U of 0 faculty votes against the war, and the University President, Robert Clark, stunned by the deaths at Kent State, suspends classes for two vigorous days of teach-ins. Classes continue after this, while other universities around the country close for the school year. The following Fall, 18-year-olds get the vote and Christopher Alexander arrives at the University of Oregon.
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