(Top: Students protested a proposed fee increase in early 1970. A one point, a group "took over" the first floor of Cutler Hall; unfortunately, I don't know for how long or by how many, but it ended more or less peacefully. Bottom: Just last month the Palmerfest block party ended in flames and arrests, as riot police shut it down.)
A healthy dose of civil disobedience is one thing. Rioting is another thing entirely. Unfortunately, one seems to lead to the other in many cases, and OU has a color past when it comes to both. Inspired by some comments on my last entry that mentioned that Cutler Hall was once invaded by protesting students, I decided to explore the topic of civil disobedience at Ohio University, or in some cases, just plain disobedience.
- The first documented account of notable unrest is from 1826, when Ohio University students staged their first riot. The trigger was pretty pitiful (a student was miffed at then President Wilson’s corrections on his literary composition, which was deemed “unsatisfactory”), but the tension had been mounting for two years. It was then that the faculty discussed the need for more supervision of the Edifice, which served as dormitory. As Manasseh Cutler (whose name was later given to the Edifice building) said, “chambers in colleges are too often made the nurseries of every vice and cage of unclean birds.” In 1825, President Wilson reported to the trustees that there had been “more calls than usual for the exercise of discipline during the last term.” It seems that 1826 riot was almost predictable.
- The 1950s saw some rather innocent insurrections, more mischief making than anything else. Most notable is the Orange Riot (1958), which began with a couple boys play catch on East Green with oranges obtained from the dining hall. Gradually, more and more students joined in the fun until a minor war erupted. At one point, three to five thousand people covered East Green, playing and observing. When police and ARAs tried to disperse the crowd, they paid no heed and proceed to different female dorms, urging girls to toss out their underwear. After a few hours, the good-natured crowd turned in, making it memorable but rather uneventful.
- By the sixties though, Ohio University had acquired a party school reputation. Each spring, celebrants poured into town (now called the Fort Lauderdale of Ohio) for spring fests and St. Patrick’s Day.
- In 1968, an eventful year around the world, a riot erupted. When a nonacademic employees’ union suddenly opted not strike, as was the word on the street, students expecting school to close early were annoyed and acted out. More than two thousand students amassed outside of the president’s house on Park Place, shouting, “Let’s go home” and “We want a strike.” President Alden, his wife, and their young children waiting inside as police moved the crowd away. It dispersed and migrating toward Court Street, only refueling angry sentiments with alcohol. Students returned to Park Place, where they gathered on the construction site of the new library across the street from the Aldens’ home. This time, some lit fires in the street while others picked up bricks and lead pipes from the site and hurled them through the president’s windows.
- In spite of the generally mellow tone of campus life during the mid-to-late seventies, each year seemed to end in conflict and bad publicity. The 1972-73 school year ended with a brick-throwing skirmish against Athens police. And again, in 1976, an otherwise progressive and positive year ended in June when a street confrontation between students and police ended in police firing of wooden bullets at brick-throwing students. The year 1979 marked the tenth time in eleven years that students left the bars late on a warm spring evening and eventually battled police for control of Court Street.
- Most recently, OU made the news for the “near-riots” of Palmerfest on May 9, 2009, a debacle that serves as an embarrassing reminder that large crowds, copious amounts of alcohol and nice weather sometimes don’t mix. I was out of town that weekend but was thankful for the Post’s timely and in-depth reporting on the event.
This history is certainly nothing to be proud of, but maybe if more students understood that our quiet campus has been periodically stained by senseless violence, they would perhaps want to help break that cycle.
Photo Credit - First image: Courtesy of Robert E. & Jean R. Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections. Second image: From the Post web site, taken by Greg Roberts. Third image: From the Post web site, taken by Sam Saccone.
