Academic Freedom and Free Speech at U of I

The Broyles’ Bills
Clabaugh Act (1947)
The Leo Koch Case
The Fight for Freedom of Speech and Expression in the 1960s

Student Life during the Cold War Era

The GI Bill and the U of I
Sex, Censorship, and the College Scene
Conservatives on Campus
The Black Athlete at the U of I
Women’s Athletics at the University of Illinois

Civil Rights on Campus

The Struggle for Integration in the 1940s and 50s
Affirmative Action at the University of Illinois
Project 500
Second Wave Feminism on Campus
Gay Rights on Campus
Latina/o Students at U of I

Vietnam War Protests

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at U of I
U of I students and the draft
1967 Protest-Sit-In against DOW Chemical
Publication of “Walrus”
October 15, 1969 Moratorium
March 1970 Rally Against GE
March Riots (1970)
May Student Strike (1970)

University Politics

The Rise and Fall of President George D. Stoddard
The U of I and the Defense Department
Surveillance, Discipline and the University of Illinois

Student protesters objected to the presence of Dow Chemical recruiters because the company manufactured Napalm. They also publicized and attended rallies against the weapon like this one in Chicago.

In 1965 Dow Chemical collaborated with the U.S. Air Force to develop napalm.  A petroleum jelly which burns at excess of 2200 degrees Fahrenheit, napalm sticks to human flesh, continuing to burn into the body, feeding on fat and other tissue.  Beginning in 1966, university students began to protest the presence of Dow Chemical recruiters on college campuses, arguing that the use of napalm was immoral.  Students from Maine to California organized protests and sit-ins, and in the fall of 1967 campus groups held a demonstration against Dow on the University of Illinois campus.  Forty-seven University of Illinois students were eventually disciplined after taking part in the sit-in, and seven were expelled.  Students also initiated protests against General Motors and other corporations they felt were supporting and profiting from the war.

U of I Sources:

Student and Faculty Organization Constitutions and Registration Cards, 1909-  (RS 41/2/41)

Student Organizations Publications, 1871-  (RS 41/6/840)

Dean of Student’s Subject File, 1966-98 (RS 41/1/6): Includes information on SDS in Box 1

Student Discipline Files, 1953-84 (RS 41/2/44)

President David D. Henry General Correspondence, 1955-71 (RS: 2/12/1)

Bibliography:

Michael S. Foley, Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance During the Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: 2003).

William A. Gordon, The Fourth of May: Killings and Coverups at Kent State (Buffalo: 1990).

Kenneth J. Heineman, Campus Wars: the Peace Movement at American State Universities in the Vietnam Era (New York: 1993).

Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, Peace Now!: American Society and the Ending of the Vietnam War (New Haven, 1999).

Patrick D. Kennedy, “Reactions Against the Vietnam War and Military-Related Targets on Campus: The University of Illinois as a Case Study, 1965-72,” Illinois Historical Journal 84:2 (1991): 101-118.

James Miller, “Democracy is in the Streets”: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago (New York: 1987).

Michael Parenti, “Repression in Academia: A Report From the Field,” Politics and Society 1:4 (1971), 527-538.

Joel P. Rhodes, The Voice of Violence: Performative Violence as Protest in the Vietnam Era (Westport, CT: 2001).

Nancy Zaroulis and Gerald Sullivan, Who Spoke Up?: American Protest Against the War in Vietnam, 1963-1975 (Garden City, N.Y.: 1984).