Two things this week take me back more than 50 years in time. And it’s not really in a good way.

Campus protests

Really? Couldn’t we have figured out how to handle campus protests from 50 years ago without the violence and arrests of this week? I just watched two educators on PBS NewsHour, the first president of the American Association of University Professors, and the second a professor at Columbia who has been instrumental in working with students to draft speech and demonstration codes.

They didn’t agree, surprise, surprise

They didn’t agree on all points. First, from the AAUP perspective, the purpose of the campus is to instill debate and an exchange of ideas. It’s hard to do that with police standing by in riot gear, for sure. And while that speaker was quick to criticize the Columbia administration, the second speaker felt the administration was doing its best under very tough circumstances.

Free and RESPECTFUL debate is encouraged

They both feel that a free and RESPECTFUL debate should be encouraged. But the Columbia professor said the anti-semitic posters and sidewalk chalking he has seen would make Jewish students uncomfortable. That’s never okay. And why, oh why, don’t those universities just divest the investments that help Israel? It would help. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, BTW, have offered nothing to help.

I remember 1968-1970 well

 I wasn’t a campus protestor during the Vietnam War. I was already reporting for the campus newspaper, so it wouldn’t have been appropriate. I then went to work at a small daily where I listened to my elders in the newsroom diss student protesters everywhere. I, though, was on the students’ side. And I felt alone.

1968 Chicago Democratic convention

I also remember the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention where protestors were arrested, roughed up and denied their rights to protest. It was ugly. Many are predicting another ugly convention time because of the Palestinian protests. I agree with the protests, BTW.

And then, of course, Kent State in 1970

I visited Kent State a few years ago as a consultant. The campus will never recover from the slaying of some of its students by the National Guard during a protest there. They were college students, remember? The photo above is from Life Magazine at the time of that horrible incident.

Will we learn?

I felt certain my generation would fix the Vietnam mess and other wars in which young men who should be in college were being killed on the battlefield. It really hasn’t happened if you think about the world today and how we treat one another.

Earth Day

And then there was Earth Day this week. Wow! My generation was going to fix that, too. I was working for the Des Moines Tribune when the first Earth Day happened in 1970. Again, we were so sure our parents’ generation was to blame. But the planet is in far worse shape now than when we found it. And most folks my age are no longer working and just contribution to the use of resources as they generate pollution.

Thanks, Joni!

As Joni Mitchell said, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone. Take Paradise and put up a parking lot!”