One Historical Event Drew Faust Does Not Want You To Reenact

April 9--exactly one week ago--marks the 40th anniversary of the infamous student takeover of University Hall. That's right. Forty years ago, a mob of angry students barged into the administrative building and kicked the deans out. FlyBy didn't know the anniversary had passed--but considering FAS's projected $220 million deficit over the next two years, we probably don't have the funds to invite guest speakers to commemorate an event like that anyway. More ruminations on student takeovers after the jump.

Cornell, on the other hand, has commemorated their own Spring '69 takeover every five years with a weeklong series of events. They're even about to commemorate the 40th anniversary. Granted, their takeover has probably been harder to recover from, since it deals not just with rowdy students hating on the administration, but also racial issues. The Afro-American Society--all of a couple of dozen students--was protesting worse academic conditions for black students. But when they were taking over the student union, one former protester says, they did so very politely:

Sounds great. The 30 students who took over University Hall, on the other hand, violently barged in at noon on April 9th. One picked up and carried a dean outside, and another punched an assistant dean in the face. The students evicted all the administrators and let in hundreds more protesters throughout the afternoon and night, until the number mushroomed to 500. They wanted ROTC to be eliminated, since the draft was taking so many students away to Vietnam. They were also angry about what they felt was an out-of-touch administration--the most salient example being the 1968 Commencement, which was held in Sanders Theatre with only the summa cum laudes attending, for the more plebeian magnas and everyone else to watch on television, since they hadn't planned for rain in Tercentenary Theatre.

But back to University Hall. At 3 A.M. on April 10, city and state police--under the urging of University President Nathan Marsh Pusey--barged in to evict the students. The protesters had resolved to nonviolence and formed a human chain across the doorway--right before getting arrested. Though the University had agreed not to press charges, the city ended up putting two guys in jail for nine months for assault and battery (including the one who had punched the assistant dean in the face). 23 students were also expelled, with the possibility of readmission in the future, and three were permanently expelled.

This isn't the last takeover that Harvard has seen, though. In 2001, several dozen students took over Massachusetts Hall to protest low wages for janitors and dining hall and maintenance workers. Faced with a tense budget situation again this time around, the Student Labor Action Movement appears to be gearing up—handing President Faust a letter at a recent lunch meeting in Eliot. But there's a long way to go between envelopes and building takeovers.

Photo from Daderot/Wikimedia Commons