Madison in the Sixties. May 16, 1966 – the anti-deferment sit-in.
As the war in Viet Nam kept getting worse, the monthly draft call kept getting higher. When it hit 40,000 in December 1965, Selective Service director General Lewis B. Hershey warned that “marginal” students — about 10 percent of university freshmen and sophomores — could soon lose their 2-S student deferment and be drafted. With no clear definition of “marginal,” the American Council of Educators recommends that Hershey bring back the policy from the Korean War, using class rank and/or a standardized test to determine deferments. That’s what Hershey does, effective January 1966.
UW Dean of students Joseph Kauffman supports the policy, and most students go along with it; more than 8000 campus men – about three-fourths of the male student body – return the IBM card telling the registrar to send their records to their local draft boards.
But a very vocal and active group objects to the entire concept of college deferments; they argue that protecting privileged college students puts an unfair burden on the poor and nonwhite and insulates the politically powerful middle class from the war’s true impact. They also warn that academic integrity suffers when grades literally become a matter of life and death.
As two thousand alumni gathered on Friday, May 13 for their big weekend, about two hundred students are meeting in the Memorial Union lobby to approve a set of demands, issued later that night by the ad hoc Committee on the University and the Draft (CUD). They don’t just want the university to publicly protest the current system – their statement, drafted by Lowell Bergman and James Hawley demands that the university “refuse to cooperate with the Selective Service System” by not releasing academic records or allowing the draft exemption tests to be held in university facilities – which would effectively prevent their classmates from getting a deferment.
Sunday night, a group of several hundred debates whether to occupy the new administration building, where student records are kept, before voting not to do so.
Early Monday afternoon, May 16, university President Fred Harvey Harrington, Chancellor Robben Fleming, Kauffman, and other administrators meet in Bascom Hall with fourteen representatives of the CUD. Harrington rejects the CUD’s demands, saying it must be up to each student whether to either accept or decline the university’s services in maintaining their deferment. The current system stays, he says, unless the faculty decides otherwise at its meeting on May 25.
While the Bascom Hall conference is going on, a rump group of about two hundred fifty assembles on the lawn outside the as yet unnamed administration building; to their back across Murray Street, the start of construction of the as yet unnamed Humanities building.
Then word comes down the hill that the administration has rejected all of the CUD’s demands. So math teaching assistant Hank Haslach and sophomore Bob Zwicker, elected just a few days earlier as the new leaders of Students for a Democratic Society, move to occupy the building. The group agrees by acclamation, and they all walk in.
At first, it’s just about twenty-five individuals, but news zooms around campus, and scores of students start showing up, suddenly needing transcripts or a new ID card. The group keeps growing, and by late afternoon more than five hundred are jamming the lobby and hallways, with an equal number outside. By midnight, close to fifteen hundred students are taking part in the peaceful occupation.
Philosophy grad student Bob Cohen, who will be arrested at the two Dow demonstrations in 1967, urges active obstruction. But the group collectively agrees to occupy, but not disrupt. It’s a wise decision.
Madison police chief Wilbur Emery wants to clear the building, but Chancellor Fleming says the protesters can stay so long as they stay out of the way of office business, which they do. Republican Governor Warren Knowles says it’s an “internal matter” for the university to handle, and it does.
The only disruption inside comes from some troublemakers, not part of the protest; university police clear the main lobby at 11 o’clock to remove them, then let the protesters back in. Outside, some who oppose the action hurl insults and eggs; campus police chief Ralph Hanson, protecting the protesters, catches a few—not always with his hands. About 175 students stay overnight, entertained by a showing of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times.
Through Tuesday the 17th, and throughout the whole week, a unique sense of community develops, something new to all but a few. They’re sharing their space and their food, studying together for next week’s finals, and really discussing the issues. For many, this new level of communication and collaboration is the highlight of the sit-in.
The leading history professors come by, some to stay awhile. George Mosse is a calming presence, Harvey Goldberg his usual intense self. William Appleman Williams gives a disjointed discourse comparing the sit-in to a baseball game, with the faculty soon coming to bat, to win the day; it’s not his finest moment. The only professor to actually sit in is sociology professor Hans Gerth.
By focusing on the draft rather than the war – which most students still support — the action breaks through to groups long hostile to the entire antiwar movement. Both the WSA Senate and the Inter-Fraternity Council pass resolutions denouncing the draft, calling college deferments bad for education and endorsing the CUD’s demands. For the first time, students from the dorms, Langdon Street and Miffland are all on the same side.
On Wednesday the 18th, an extraordinary gathering on the historic hill – Harrington, Chancellor Robben Fleming and others at Lincoln Terrace, addressing an afternoon crowd of about 8000. Fleming praises the protester for what he calls their “disciplined behavior and responsible manner,” which he says has “proven once again that the right to protest, which is essential in a democratic society, can be handled in a responsible manner at the University of Wisconsin.” And he announces a special faculty meeting on the draft, as CUD demanded, for Monday the 23rd.
“We have won,” veteran activist leader John Coatsworth says.
The sit-in ends Friday afternoon, and everyone prepares for the faculty meeting on Monday.
And that’s this week’s Madison in the Sixties. For your award-winning, listener supported WORT news team., I’m Stu Levitan.
The sit-in, May 17 1966. David Sandell photo for the Capital Times, courtesy Wisconsin Historical Society Archives. Whi Image 136681
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