The Daily Tar Heel

Issue date: 2/27/07 Section: State & National

Media Credit: Copyright of Don Sturkey, 1969, North Carolina Collection (Right) DTH/Amanda Price Protesters march during the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam on Oct. 15, 1969, at UNC. More than 7,000 students skipped class to participate in the march. The moratorium corresponded to similar protests at campuses across the country and in Washington, D.C. (Right) Members of Students for a Democratic Society march from Polk Place to the new Army recruitment station in Chapel Hill on Nov. 15 in protest of the station's opening in town.

Chapel Hill's liberal tradition has long encouraged freedom of expression, but the civil disobedience of today's students cannot compare to the passionate dissent of the Vietnam era.

UNC students arrested for staging a sit-in Feb. 16 at the Chapel Hill office of Democratic U.S. Rep. David Price to cut Iraq war funding voiced frustration with the duration of the almost four-year-old conflict.

Their protest is a sharp dichotomy to the thousands of UNC students who cut classes, missed finals and risked arrest or expulsion in the many organized and spontaneous demonstrations that took place on campus and in the town during the tumultuous school year of 1969-70.

Some historians, politicians and trend watchers point to many similarities between the Vietnam War and the conflict in Iraq.

UNC history professor Michael Hunt, an expert on U.S. involvement in Asia, cited military unpreparedness, a lack of knowledge of the invaded region and the public's reaction as commonalities.

He added that despite similar public opinion polls taken from the two wars, the absence of a draft today likely has been the biggest factor in shaping the differences between the conflicts.

"I think any argument that this is sweepingly parallel is problematic," he said.

History professor Peter Filene, who has been a member of the UNC faculty since 1967, said that although half of his students know someone in Iraq, the war does not stir up the same controversy he witnessed during the Vietnam era.

"It's not as if they have no relationship to the war, but without the draft they are not forced to make it an existential question for themselves," he said.

Humanitarianism

UNC junior Alisan Fathalizadeh, who was arrested for her part in the protest at Price's office, said her Iranian heritage obligates her to do whatever she can to end the war.

Fathalizadeh, a member of the newly-revived Students for a Democratic Society, also said that while activism is now stigmatized, Chapel Hill students are involved in many worthy humanitarian causes.

Students, past and current activists, historians and University administrators agreed that apathy is not a factor in Iraq protests being smaller and significantly less impassioned than those from Vietnam.

"I think our generation cares and are probably more intelligent and more informed than other generations," said junior Jon Kite, who ran this year for student body president and pushed for an increase in student activism.

Others said the interests of today's college-aged youth are spread too thin; without a unifying factor such as a draft in an unpopular war, students devote themselves to a variety of causes.

The draft revisited

Some politicians and citizens are calling for the draft to be reinstated, arguing that all citizens should be personally responsible for an American war.

U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., introduced a bill in the House requiring that all legal residents be subject to a draft during wartime, with those not needed by the military placed in schools, hospitals and other domestic services.

But Vietnam War activists who once staunchly opposed the draft now point to limitations of an all-volunteer army.

Buck Goldstein, UNC class of 1970, led 7,000 students in skipping classes on Oct. 15, 1969, to protest the Vietnam War as part of a nationwide moratorium, but he said that looking back now, he is ambivalent about the draft.

"I'm not sure that if we go to war it shouldn't be an equal-opportunity war," said Goldstein, now UNC's entrepreneur in residence. "It wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't some national discourse growing out of this about the all-volunteer army."

Larry Kessler, a former UNC history professor who protested the military draft during Vietnam out of concern for his students, said that intellectually, he now supports it. "It would be more difficult for our leaders to go off to war willy-nilly."

War was 'like pollution'

Those who experienced the University during Vietnam remember the war permeating every aspect of life.

It was like pollution in the atmosphere, Filene said.

"You couldn't help coughing or breathing it, even if you had other things on your mind."

The Oct. 15 demonstration Goldstein organized drew 60 percent of the student body, The Daily Tar Heel reported the following day. Goldstein said his intention was to mainstream dissent.

"You don't have to be taking LSD to protest the war," he said. "Little old ladies in tennis shoes were marching."

After four students were killed by National Guardsmen at a Kent State University war protest the following May, student government took an active roll in organizing demonstrations. Tommy Bello, student body president in 1970, released a statement condemning the violence at Kent State and led student rallies.

Such involvement in national and international politics no longer is part of the student body president's job description, and candidates seek to distance themselves from divisive issues such as the war.

Kite said he wished student officials still served as cultural leaders.

"Student government is too silent these days," he said. "I think student leaders limit themselves."

After Kent State, life as usual - classes, homework and final exams - stopped for many students.

"I was in with my student friends in the lounge of Hinton James watching on TV, and all of us just in deadly silence, frozen silence, watching the National Guard having shot four students and realizing we can't go on with the rest of our week," Filene said.

UNC students argued that devoting their time to protest was their highest educational priority.

"It became an academic issue when students wanted amnesty for skipping classes and to not have to take finals," Filene said. "The war infiltrated every crevice of life in a way it doesn't now."

At a May 7 special meeting, the General Faculty ruled in favor of students, granting professors the option to excuse students from further class work.

"We felt an obligation as University professors that we had a special role to play here," said Lou Lipsitz, a retired UNC political science professor.

Activist soccer moms

Vietnam protests at UNC should be viewed as part of a greater cultural and social phenomenon, coming on the heels of a decade of protests about social issues. New concern about racial discrimination and the interplay of freedom and authority contributed to an atmosphere conducive to passionate dissent and debate.

"American culture was changing in very radical ways," Lipsitz said. "There was a general rebellion against authority."

The same generational gap does not exist between today's students and their parents.

Goldstein predicts that if a draft ever were reinstated, America's "soccer moms" would protest more vocally than the college-aged youth who would be directly affected.

"Think about Cindy Sheehan times a thousand," he said, referring to the mother of a soldier killed in Baghdad who camped outside President Bush's ranch in 2005 to protest the war.

A liberal tradition

Despite the high tensions associated with wartime, protests at UNC remained peaceful.

William Friday, UNC-system president from 1955-86, attributes the restraint shown by demonstrators and counter-demonstrators to the UNC's tradition of student self-government and press freedom.

Friday's respect for dissent won him the trust and admiration of students and faculty.

Lipsitz said that he never was worried that his activism as a faculty member would cost him his job and that after he wrote a controversial letter to The Daily Tar Heel, Friday defended his First Amendment right to free speech.

"I didn't have to be that provocative, but I was being protected," Lipsitz said.

Friday was one of eight university heads who President Nixon called to the White House to get advice on addressing student unrest.

In that talk and others across the country, Friday said he used UNC to illustrate how freedom of speech could be preserved in tense times.

"You absolutely must maintain that right of expression," he said. "The University is the one organization in society that must keep pushing forward."



Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.

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