By Maureen Fox

Daily Titan Staff Writer

CSF students once marched from CSF to Fullerton Junior College to protesr Ronald Reagan’s governance and the Vietnam War.

The trouble began on Feb. 9, 1970, when Gov. Ronald Reagan visited California State College, Fullerton to address the campus about the need to charge tuition.

Two students, David MacKowiak, 25, and Bruce Church, 31, made several gestures of contempt and shouted obscenities at Reagan during his speech. Their resulting arrests threw the campus into an uproar.

Because many students saw the arrests as an infringement on their freedom of speech, they began holding demonstrations in support of MacKowiak and Church. As the demonstrations progressed, the number of participants grew.

On Feb. 25, 1970, a tactical squad of 20 Fullerton police members came to campus to break up a crowd of over 300 protesters. The resulting scuffles and arrests sparked 12 weeks of turbulence.

The Vietnam War protests of 1970 are the largest scale demonstrations in Cal State Fullerton’s history. CSUF was reflecting the chaos of a nation in the midst of war.

58 people – consisting of 42 students, two professors and eight others – were arrested during that spring semester and following summer.

Students defaced and vandalized buildings, held a sit-in of the president’s office, blocked hallways to prevent students from attending class and led a march from CSUF to Fullerton Junior College to protest Reagan’s governance and the Vietnam War. Students set fire to bungalow T1100, which caused $30,000 in damage and destroyed student records. Several students were expelled and many more were arrested. And one professor was fired for failing to hold class because he was protesting.

One of the largest demonstrations sparked by MacKowiak and Church’s arrests began on Mar. 3, 1970.

As the Student Faculty Board held a hearing for the two men inside the Humanities Building, protesters gathered outside in the Quad.

Former professor of communications and Daily Titan adviser Wayne Overbeck stood on the second floor balcony of the Humanities Building with several student photographers. They captured the scene as the local SWAT team attempted to control the crowd.

Sophomore Paul Gerritz stood in the Quad and watched the Fullerton police officers and SWAT repeatedly push back protesting students who became too rowdy.

Interview with alumnus Paul Gerritz

“They would run forward and arrest people and hit them with clubs and everything else, and then drag them back to be arrested,” Gerritz said.

Two demonstrators flank the door to President William B. Langsorf's office during the Wednesday sit-in to protest the arrest of two CSF students earlier this month. The demonstrator at left later tried to take a newsman's camera. -This caption ran on February 26, 1970.

Professor Sandra Sutphen, who participated in the protests, faced the police as they advanced toward her and other faculty members.

Interview with Sandra Sutphen

“(What I remember most is) how absolutely terrified I felt,” Sutphen said. “There were people who were quite capable of hitting me on the head and knocking me unconscious.”

Up to that point, the protests had been completely peaceful; they were simply standing up for their rights as students and as individuals. They were trying to make their opposition toward the war known, Sutphen said.

“It added to a sense of solidarity on the campus,” Sutphen said. “It was the campus versus the external community.”

But on that day, police arrested 19 demonstrators. That number could have been higher, however, if one professor had not found a way to end the chaos peacefully.

Hans Leder, a professor of humanities, stood up in front of the library and called everyone to attention. He announced that this was now Anthropology 069 and asked the protesters to sit down and have a discussion.

By sitting down, the protesters in the Quad were then attending class. Since it was illegal to forcibly obstruct anyone from attending school, the protesters could not be moved.

Gerritz remembers that the Anthropology 069 class lasted for many days. “Twenty-four hours a day there would be people sitting in the Quad,” Gerritz said. “The police just had to stand around and watch”.

Rather than participate in the protests, Gerritz, a biology major, volunteered with several local doctors and USC medical students at a first aid station set up in the Quad to respond to injuries as they happened.

Gerritz attributes the protest’s peaceful ending to Leder’s actions. “He had the forethought to end the entire demonstration,” Gerritz said.

However, Leder’s effort only ended one demonstration. The protests continued.

On April 15, students held an anti-Vietnam rally in the Quad. They burned draft cards, two dolls and one flower in napalm. In the April 16, 1970 issue of the Daily Titan, ex-Vietnam serviceman Dave Mallard was quoted as having said, “This is nothing compared to the smoke and smell from real human bodies.”

On May 4, members of the National Guard opened fire on students at Kent State University in Ohio who were protesting the Vietnam War. Four students were killed and nine more were injured.

In an attempt to prevent violence in California, Reagan closed down all the public universities from May 4 – 11. He said he hoped the closure would “allow time for rational reflection away from the emotional turmoil and encourage all to disavow violence and mob action.”

Students returned to class on May 12, the beginning of finals week. Although some unrest was still evident, the most intense demonstrations had passed. They, however, left a lineage.

“The protests really defined a generation,” Overbeck said. “They made real changes in the system – eventually. Obama’s election is a long-term result of the social changes that began in the 1960s.”

The Vietnam War finally ended in the spring of 1975. But the memories of the protest era have not been forgotten.

Overbeck once wrote that “perhaps the most decisive and enduring victory won by the students of that era was greater First Amendment freedom for college and university students. Even now, in a time when the courts are narrowing the scope of student freedom rather than expanding it further, students enjoy far greater freedom on campus than they did before the late 1960s.”

When the protests ended in the fall of 1970, the nation was still at war, both sides were exhausted and demonstrations across the country had brought violence to universities. But the protesters had made their sentiments heard and expanded their rights to protest for future CSUF students.

Interview with Kim Collell