Fiery protests, crowded sit-ins and massive demonstrations
characterized college campuses during the Vietnam era.
It may be too soon to tell whether such images will one day also
define the Iraq anti-war movement.
As the nation prepares for a potential strike on Iraq, more and
more students are voicing their opinions and participating in
demonstrations and protests. But professors and administrators
active during the Vietnam era agree that at this point student
activism does not compare to the anti-war events that took place in
the 1960s.
“I don’t see a lot of student activists at
UCLA,” said history professor Mary Corey, who was an
undergraduate student at UCLA in the early 1960s.
“That is still a hole in the campus life,” she
added.
Corey, who attended anti-war demonstrations in Los Angeles on
Saturday, remarked on the lack of undergraduate student
involvement.
English professor Fred Burwick agreed.
“Ask yourself are UCLA students ready, right now, to walk
out of classes? Are students ready, right now, to climb up on the
roof of Murphy Hall? See I don’t think so,” Burwick
said.
Student activism at UCLA during the Vietnam era consisted of
sit-ins, debates, classes being held outdoors and student refusal
to attend classes, among other methods of protest.
Berkey Nelson, administrative representative at the center for
student programming, recalls one incident involving thousands of
students convening to debate whether or not to burn down the ROTC
building.
As the decision was made not to burn the building the LAPD
appeared on campus.
“Eventually the police were hitting students,”
Nelson said.
“The LAPD was very brutal. There is nothing that compares
to that today,” he added.
Nelson considers the existence of a draft as a key difference
between today and the Vietnam era.
“There was the increased concern about the draft,”
said Nelson, who was a faculty member at UCLA during the Vietnam
War. “Draft numbers would come up and you would be pulled
right out of school.”
Student activism was also unique in the Vietnam era due to the
years of already increased agitation that it followed.
“There has been no movement like the women rights and
Civil Rights Movement,” said history professor Gary Nash.
“That was such a build up.”
Though they say today’s peace movement does not yet
compare with that of the 1960s, professors also see qualities in
the anti-Iraq war movement that were not present in the 1960s. The
increased ability to spread news, due to technological advancement,
is characteristic of the anti-war movement taking place today.
“E-mail and the Web have altered the way information is
spread … People are following the progress and asking
questions,” Corey said.
Though the student body overall is not as active as it was
during the Vietnam era, many students today still take action for
the same reasons as those in the 1960s, while others’ reasons
stem from more current events.
Other students who support the war with Iraq are also voicing
their views.
“There is a lot of activism. It’s a healthy part of
democracy,” said Alex Mikaelian, fourth-year political
science student, who protested a recent pro-peace teach-in.