The Campus Coalition Forms
Bowman:, Bill
The Campus Coalition Forms Bill Bowman "We believe the solution to the university crisis in the United States is to be found in a return to fundamentals," begins the Statement of Principles of the...
...Students across the country hastily formed little groups which sought to inject a bit of calm rationality into the tremendous wave of emotion then threatening to negate, at least for the time being, everything for which the university stood...
...and wouldn't it be nice if there were a nationwide organization...
...And as schools close to protest political decisions, as faculties vote to censure themselves for teaching "irrelevant" material, as students demand, picket, lock arms and break windows, someone must yell "STOP...
...The success of this venture is tied directly to the success of a fund-raising effort...
...Nearly one hundred student leaders from anti-strike groups- at fifty-five colleges and universities assembled the next day to hammer out the final form of the Statement of Principles, to hear a Chicago attorney describe the legal implications of a school closing down, to discuss tactics used to counteract violence and university shut- downs and to lay the foundations for future activities...
...Since universities are the most vulnerable of our social institutions, it would seem likely that a first battleground would be the college campus...
...People began talking about duplicated efforts and confusion about getting legal and other help...
...Please address all questions, suggestions, offers and/ or pleas for help to the following address: CAMPUS COALITION, Room 204, 2313 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois 60201 or call 312-866-7575 or 312-492-7146...
...Among the activities urged at the conference were the formulation of a kit to include instructions on how to organize a Campus Coalition chapter, suggested tactics to use to keep universities open and calm, a discussion of legal alternatives available if these tactics fail, and hints on how to raise money and how to get press coverage...
...Bowman is an undergraduate at Northwestern University...
...From Free Speech, Berkeley, to May Strike, Everytown, the "movement" has spread...
...A second meeting of the Campus Coalition is being planned for spring...
...Groups such as George Taylor's "Majority Alliance" at Ohio State, Arthur Waldron's Harvard chapter of "University Centers for Rational Alternatives" (Sidney Hook, president), Ray Tindel's "Committee for Campus Peace" at the University of Chicago, and Tom Siedell's "Committee for Undisrupted Education" at the University of Nebraska, formed at schools across the country to counteract student strikes and disturbances...
...These kits will be sent to any student on any campus who feels that his school might be threatened with violence, and who would like to do something about it...
...The most immediate goal, however, is to spread the news of the Campus Coalition to To Be or Not to Be students on campuses throughout the country in order to get as many groups as possible started to work for campus peace before trouble starts...
...Right now the Coalition is assembling data from member schools on potential trouble areas in order to prepare for problems before they arise...
...The Coalition also needs its address and telephone number distributed nationwide...
...He is one of the founders of the Campus Coalition and a member of the League for Invincible Truth, Inc...
...Plans being made now for nationwide anti-war demonstrations in late April or May will be watched closely as they develop...
...Letters were written...
...On 14 November 1970, the Campus Coalition was born in Chicago, Illinois...
...Rocky Rees of the Yale "Free Campus Committee" and John Meyer of the University of Pennsylvania Law School announced that this kit would be available in a few weeks...
...The fight for the preservation of our educational institutions is everybody's fight...
...Regional conferences of anti-strike groups were held...
...The seeds of the Coalition were sown with the first trouble following American troop movements into Cambodia and the Kent State deaths...
...On Friday, 13 November, the steering committee of the Campus Coalition met at Chicago's O'Hare Inn to set an agenda for the next day's meeting, and to work out a rough draft of the Statement of Principles...
...Mark Souder, former student body president at Indiana University at Fort Wayne and leader of "Students for Order on Campus," chaired the meeting and became the Coalition's president...
...This mission has necessarily pitted the Campus Coalition against the political ideologies of the New Left, whose tactics of violence and disruption seek firstto politicize our educational institutions as instruments of Leftist dogma, and then to destroy them along with the remaining institutions of our culture...
...The Campus Coalition needs more student chapters, suggestions, offers of help from professional people (especially attorneys) and money...
...And in the aftermath of the week of 4 May 1970, as some groups prepared legal actions against their schools and as others sought to engage their campus community in rational dialogue, it became evident that as there had been a nationwide strike, there had also been a nationwide reaction against it...
...At least the Coalition hopes to exist as an address and telephone number which any student can contact for legal help or suggestions once trouble has occurred...
...The Campus Coalition Forms Bill Bowman "We believe the solution to the university crisis in the United States is to be found in a return to fundamentals," begins the Statement of Principles of the Campus Coalition, a recently formed nationwide organization of college students of diverse political beliefs, dedicated to the preservation of the university...
...A second activity of the Campus Coalition is the construction of a nationwide network of attorneys who will be available to help students exert legal muscle to keep schools open if the tactic of moral persuasion fails...
Vol. 4 • April 1971 • No. 5
