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By Paul Robert Walker '75

At about 11:30 p.m. on April 17, 1969, after a meeting of student activists at the Eagle Rock home of Oxy chaplain Bruce Bueschel, sophomore Richard Coburn went upstairs with the chaplain and placed a call to President Richard Gilman. Coburn told Gilman that he had a rifle with a sniper scope and pleaded with him to cancel a scheduled visit by Navy recruiters the following morning. "I'm violently opposed to the presence of military recruiters on campus," he said, "and I'll use any means necessary to stop them."

After it became clear that Coburn was in a "highly emotional state" (as Gilman described it the next morning), the president asked Bueschel to restrain him. But Coburn broke away, ran downstairs, and disappeared into the night, eventually taking refuge at the home of graduate student Linda Hoag '68 M'70.

Gilman called Coburn's parents (who lived in San Pedro, about 30 miles south of Oxy) and reported the incident to the Los Angeles Police Department, which in turn contacted the Navy. At about 6 a.m., a Navy official called Gilman to cancel the visit, scheduled for just four hours later.

"I thought all this discussion about a sit-in and other ways to stop the recruiters was ridiculous," Coburn—identified in student newspaper accounts as "John Doe"— recently explained in a phone call. "If you want to stop the recruiters, you just stop them. I researched the point at which verbal posturing crossed the line and became the crime of assault, and I asked a classmate who knew about guns what kind of weapon you would need to pose a serious threat. He suggested a 1906 Springfield .30-30 rifle with a 30-power sniper scope. So that's what I said I had. I recently discovered that that type of gun never even existed."

Coburn would be suspended for a year, but his dramatic gesture only delayed the standoff that he hoped to avoid. Twelve days later, on April 30, two Navy recruiters came to the Counseling and Placement Center, located on the first floor of the College's administration building. They were met by almost 300 student protesters, including 47 who occupied the office in order to obstruct access to the recruiters. Their effort represented the largest demonstration against the Vietnam War at Oxy.

Though the protest proved peaceful, there were consequences for those who occupied the Placement Center. Following an open hearing held May 12-13, the 42 protesters who were enrolled Oxy students were suspended for the rest of the quarter and forced to withdraw from classes. Although this left the door open for their return, only 23 of them would ultimately graduate from Occidental.

Some 45 years after the event, memories of those who participated are still strong. For some, at least, the emotions have not fully faded. Here is their story, in their own words, interspersed with contemporary documents and testimony from the disciplinary hearing that followed.

Bill Hawkins '69: During my sophomore year, politics began to enter the campus picture in a big way. My roommate Byron Johnson, a brilliant black student from Chicago, and I founded a chapter of SDS [Students for a Democratic Society] in November 1966. Our first anti-war demon­stration was a year later, when we protested military recruiters in the Quad. The recruiters were behind a little table, so it was easy for us to sit down in front of them, but people were still able to talk to them. We were not physically stopping them. Out of this protest came the ideology of obstructionism and non-obstructionism.

President Richard Gilman began to outline this distinction in a memorandum to Dean of Students John McAnally published in The Occidental the day after the protest.

Richard Gilman, November 1967: The efforts today to impede by physical means the access of students to the table ... is not something which can be regarded lightly by the Administration or by anyone who presumes to believe in academic freedom, the right to dissent, or the right to protest. Willful obstruction or interference with students seeking to visit the recruiting table, or otherwise avail themselves to facilities open to all on this campus, is a matter which can and should be subject to disciplinary action by the Faculty Committee on Student Conduct and Scholarship.

The following April, another SDS-organized anti-recruiting demonstration in the Quad took place without incident. The situation began to change at the end of the academic year with the dedication of the Arthur G. Coons Administrative Center, which generated a mass protest by faculty and students who wanted a new library more than a "monument." (Construction on a major library addition began the following  year.) But it was national events that really turned the mood on campus. Sophomore Les Guthman worked as a personal assistant and driver for Sen. Robert Kennedy, whose presidential campaign ended tragically at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 6, 1968.

Les Guthman '70: At the Ambassador Hotel, I was waiting in Sen. Kennedy's car to drive Ethel and him to the victory party. From my vantage point outside the ballroom, I saw RFK and each of the other victims carried out to the ambulances, which had pulled up alongside our car.

I brought several Oxy students into the Students for Kennedy organization in Southern California. The impact was devastating for all of us, as it was for the anti-war movement around the country. It dashed any hope of ending the war through the electoral process. And coming only two months after Martin Luther King's assassination, it raised very real questions in our minds about whether real change was possible through the established norms. The sit-in at Oxy was a logical result.

When students returned to campus in September 1968, mere days after the explosive Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the atmosphere was so tense that Gilman temporarily suspended recruiting by military and war-related industries and established a committee composed of students, faculty, and administrators to work toward a solution. According to The Occidental, that committee failed because "the student representatives considered the presence of military recruiters on campus to be a non-negotiable issue."

Jerry Stinson '69: I was very active in the antiwar movement, a leader in SDS, and said at that point, "If you bring military recruiters to the campus I will block them." Having said that, I was asked to serve on the Placement Center committee, and I said, "Sure, as long as you understand what I'm going to do if they come back." My faith always led me into the realm of justice and peace. The war in Vietnam in my mind was terribly immoral and needed to be stopped. The students they were recruiting on campus would be going to Vietnam to kill people, and I thought that was immoral and put myself between them, knowing full well that I was breaking the rules and that I would face the consequences of it.

Gilman suspended all Placement Center recruiting activities, regardless of industry or organization, on Jan. 23, 1969, and established yet another committee headed by Robert Ryf, dean of the faculty. On February 10, that committee asked Oxy students, faculty, and administrators to vote on five questions related to recruiting and the Placement Center. Out of 911 votes cast, 85 percent agreed that all recruiters should be allowed on campus. An even larger majority agreed that the College offered no endorsement by allowing an organization to recruit on campus. Gilman immediately reinstated all operations of the Placement Center, including military recruiting.

Gilman: Military recruiting on campus was not unusual. What made it unusual was the war in Vietnam. There were students who did not feel the same way as the protesters and wanted to talk with a recruiter. For me, it was a simple issue: intellectual openness. That is the purpose of a college or university. To me, the maintenance of a free and open campus was the basic task of a president in those times. If you shut down the campus to political speech, you have essentially cut the jugular of the college or university.

During the winter quarter, the ASOC Senate voted to disband itself due to internal dissent on a variety of issues, including recruiting. As the spring quarter began, President Gilman and ASOC president Don Cornwell '69 formed an Interim College Council composed of three administrators, four faculty members, and five students. The student representatives included Cornwell and four other seniors chosen (according to The Occidental) because they "were not heavily involved in or identified with any particular campus faction."

Gilman: The Honor Court—which had a long tradition at Occidental—was already in decline due to increased emphasis on student rights and formal legal proceedings. In this particular situation, many students and some faculty were not willing to sit in judgment on students acting on matters of conscience.

On the evening of April 11, more than 100 students belonging to the loosely organized Radical Caucus met in Alumni Hall (today's Choi Auditorium) to discuss what they would do when the Navy recruiters arrived the next morning. A few wanted to take over the administration building or prevent the recruiters from exiting their cars. Larger discussions centered on physically obstructing access to the recruiters vs. holding a non-obstructionist demonstration in the hallways.

The meeting collapsed in chaos, prompting some students to continue discussions with­ several faculty members and Dennis Collins, dean of students, at the home of chaplain Bruce Bueschel—where Richard Coburn made his phone call to Gilman. The false start gave the students more time to consider their actions.

Linda Hoag: Richard's commitment really changed things for me. I thought if I don't join the sit-in, I am going to regret it for the rest of my life. As a full scholarship student, I knew my mother would freak out. But to have a rehearsal like it was going to happen gave me the time I needed to say to myself, "I can't not do this."

In the days between the cancelled visit and the return of the recruiters, the Interim College Council drew up rules for the confrontation to come.

Interim College Council, April 1969: Picketing or other forms of demonstration against recruiting organizations is considered a legitimate form of dissent when it occurs outside of college buildings and does not obstruct access or disrupt activities within those buildings. If, in the opinion of the President of the College or his designate, such activity constitutes interference with normal operations, participants will be asked to desist. Failure to do so when requested will result in disciplinary action, according to established procedures. ... However, "silent vigil" demonstrations will be permitted in corridors within the building, provided they are orderly, nondisruptive, and do not obstruct access to or within the building.

Denny Zane '69: We would have these meetings of the Radical Student Caucus, and I would argue that the sit-in demonstration—while it might make the ultimate statement—was a tactical mistake, because it would clear the campus of student leaders. We didn't know then how the events would transpire, but you could assume that there might be suspensions and expulsions. So I was thinking, "Then what? How does the protest continue if its leaders all go to jail, or get suspended?"

So what do you do if you're a student activist who doesn't want to protest? My girlfriend at the time, Judy Lazaroff, and I decided that we would start a fast—we called it a hunger strike, but nobody really intended to die. She and I just started camping in the Quad with a sign that said "Hunger Strike to Protest the War." During the days leading up to the sit-in, faculty and students joined us in the Quad. It was an amazing thing, because you'd get up in the morning with 300 people in sleeping bags in the Quad.

Mark Dillon '69: I worked on the Kennedy campaign as an advance man; I was on the fifth floor of the Ambassador Hotel when Bobby was shot. After that experience, this protest, among others, just could not overcome my resulting frustration. I fully supported the hunger strike and sit-in, and I had respect and awe for guys like Bill Hawkins and Marty Rothman who managed to pull off something this big, on a level that wasn't in Oxy's DNA. I could choose between taking the final or making a film in Bill Moritz's film course that quarter, so I decided to film the events. Making this film was my way of participating.

Rex Weyler '70: We had long discussions on the Quad lawn during the hunger strike. We very consciously decided not to seize the administration building as other students had on other campuses. We felt strongly that we wanted the protest to focus precisely on the issue: employing Occidental College assets to recruit students to the war. We even decided not to "prevent" students from reaching the Placement Center, but only to occupy the access room, which meant students entering the Placement Center had to walk past and over us. We concluded that we were going to be entirely peaceful—we would not destroy any property or physically restrict anyone. We decided that our presence was enough of a statement.

Alex Wallace '72: The protest was strictly a demonstration of conscience. The aim was to bring attention to the hypocritical and deeply ironic significance of allowing military service recruitment of students attempting to get an education. The protest was based on the philosophical ideal that students should not be lured into military service and away from their higher educational goals; that the presence of campus-based recruitment was antithetical to the promise of intellectual and personal/developmental sanctuary that college was intended to provide.

Warren Clarke '71: There were the "Taoists," who were too aloof for the sit-in, and the "Radicals," who were committed to taking action. I had friends in both camps. The day before the demonstration, I finally made up my mind to join, grabbed the microphone at lunch in the Quad and—having just changed my major to religious studies—said nice and loud: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. I'll be in that room tomorrow!" I got a big round of applause for not chickening out.

Zane: There was this rumor that the guys from the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity were really pissed off—that several guys planned to force their way into the Placement Center and basically dare the protesters to deny them their rights to meet with the recruiter. That seemed like it could get really ugly. So I went to the ATO house on a couple of nights and had these long, 3-in-the-morning discussions with members of the fraternity, and in the end they decided that instead of having several guys, they would have one guy run the barricade. His name was Larry Layne.

Larry Layne '71: I was very much antiwar. I was not going to join the Navy, believe me. But I did think campuses should be open to all different viewpoints, no matter how disgusting they might be—whether it's pro-life or KKK. Who monitors ethical standards or what's right or what's wrong? My feeling was that students and faculty should be able to protest and make it very uncomfortable for people visiting, whether they're off-campus speakers or recruiters. But if students really want to see them, then let 'em go see them.

Gilman: The students were very effective in getting the word out to the media—we had TV people here as well as print journalists. The doors to the administration building were open, and they came in. They were crowded around the entrance and inside the building. I was adamant that the media would not interfere with the students, so I insisted that the demonstration would not begin until they left the building.

There was a reporter from ABC who asked me, "Don't you believe in freedom of the press?" And I said, "Yes, I believe in freedom of the press, but I believe in the right of the students to enter this building and do what they planned to do. And it's not going to happen as long as you're standing in their way." So, under protest, he and the others left. When we got the media out and opened the door, the students could come in and the whole thing ran smoothly.

The recruiters were scheduled to begin seeing interested students at 10 a.m. By 9, almost 300 anti-war protesters, including some faculty members, had gathered in the Quad. Around 9:30, a group later estimated at 235 began to enter the administration building and line the hallways outside the Placement Center in a non-obstructive "silent vigil." The two Navy recruiters, who had been waiting in the President's Office, were escorted downstairs a little before 10 by Dennis Collins and handed off to Chester Arnold, director of placement, who guided them through the protesters in the hall and into a small interview room on the left of the Placement Center. After Gilman had cleared the halls of the media, the "obstructers" entered the building through the north ground-floor door and crowded into the center's outer office.

Stinson: I was the first to go in. I tried to open the door of the building, and President Gilman was standing there, and he pulled the door closed. He wasn't ready to let us in yet. So he and I were tugging at the door, and eventually I got my foot in there caught, to keep it open. I don't know how all of the people who ended up in the room ended up there. It wasn't an organized effort. We didn't know who was going to be there.

Barbara Heinzen '71: We had all these debates—inside the center, outside the center—it seemed enormously significant at the time. The person who had the most influence on me was a master's student from Calcutta named Aditi Sarkar. I just stuck with him. We both were inside the office, politely sitting there cross-legged, and I can't remember anything that happened apart from sitting there, and there being lots of people outside, and it was all kind of crowded. I hadn't slept for two or three nights—why would you sleep when there's so much to talk about?

Layne, testimony, May 1969: At approximately 10 o'clock I approached the Coons building, and I got to the entrance and was met by President Gilman, who asked if he could speak to me just a second. ... The gist of the conversation was to the effect that he wanted no violence whatsoever, and it was understood that like anybody interfering or, shall we say, provoking or anything like this with the demonstrators ... would be met with the same type disciplinary action as the demonstrators themselves. ... After a little bit of that, we went inside and walked up to the door [of the Placement Center].

I was met by Denny Zane, who shook my hand and told me that he wanted me to think that, you know, walking over these people was like walking over people in the military. And at that I walked up to the door and was on the left side of President Gilman. I believe Dean [Brig] Knauer and Dean [Dennis] Collins were on his right … President Gilman spoke to the demonstrators. … There were two or three comments like, "Have him step on us," or "If he wants to see them, walk over us," and this type of thing … There weren't an awful lot of happy faces staring at me there, and also, just thinking about stepping on people's hands … tripping on myself, you know, how can you say it?

Carol Webb '70, testimony, May 1969: As close as I can recall, he, Dr. Gilman, asked would we prevent Larry Layne from seeing the recruiters, and there was a chorus of "No." And then … he asked us would we, were we going to make an aisle, or something to that effect, and we also said, "No"—he could walk over us.

Gilman, testimony, May 1969: The scene was ... some 40 or more persons tightly packed, seated on the floor at the left-hand side of the room. Some students with arms locked. Positioned in such a way that a person seeking access to the interview room wherein the Navy recruiters were seated would have had to step over, around, quite possibly on persons there seated. …The wording of my announcement had been prepared in advance, although I did not read it as such at the time. Essentially, what I said was this:

"I must inform you that you are in violation of College regulations by obstructing the activities and operations of this office. You will be given 10 minutes to desist from your obstructive activities. If you do not cease and desist inside of 10 minutes, you'll be subject to disciplinary action, including suspension or expulsion from the College." Having given that announcement once, [and] repeated it to make sure all heard and understood, I departed temporarily from the scene. At this point was circulated amongst the people in the room a paper the purpose of which was to collect the names of the participants in the demonstration for subsequent disciplinary action. … I believe it was circulated by Dean Culley.

The list had 44 spaces for names, but only Howard Liebman '68 M'69 and Carol Webb '70 signed their real names. The name "Jesus Christ" appeared in the first 14 spaces. Other names included Salvador Dali, Queen Victoria, and Groucho Marx. Linda Hoag, true to her studies in comparative literature, signed "Gertrude Stein."

Gilman, testimony, May 1969: After 10 minutes or so I returned to the doorway of the Placement Center, and I first inquired whether there were any persons who wished to leave while they were taking names for disciplinary action. None moved to leave. At this point, I made a further announcement along the following lines, also prepared in advance: "You have been given a specified time to discontinue your obstructive activity. Because you failed to do so, you are hereby subject to disciplinary action including suspension or expulsion."

After his second announcement, Gilman asked the students if they would move aside, so the recruiters could leave. At first there was some hesitation, but then they got up to let the military representatives leave the room.

Chester Arnold, testimony, May 1969: When I ushered them from the interview room, the students stepped back and raised the clenched fist—so we exited under a tunnel of clenched fists to the singing of "We Shall Overcome."

Hawkins: It was all very civilized compared to some of the stuff that went down at other campuses. We didn't tear the place apart, and they didn't tear us apart ultimately. Technically, we won. The Navy left, and nobody talked to them.

During a two-hour meeting on the afternoon of May 2—two days after the sit-in—the Oxy faculty voted 69-36 to suspend military recruiting for the rest of the academic year. (Eight days earlier, the faculty had defeated a similar measure by a 47-37 vote.) A student poll also showed a shift in attitude, rejecting military recruiters by a vote of 586-398.

This support did not change the fact that the protesters had crossed a clearly defined line and would be subject to disciplinary procedures. Administrators identified 42 protesters based on personal observations, photos, and self-identification. More than half of the 42 were freshmen or sophomores. (The official sign-in list, which was not provided to the administration until later, contained 47 names, including several students who were not enrolled that quarter and thus were not subject to discipline.)

The hearing was held in Alumni Hall on May 12-13, with Ryf presiding and the Interim College Council as the jury. Although the College's legal counsel was present, he asked no questions of the witnesses. The students were represented by Norm Cohen, assistant professor of history, and Richard Solomon, an attorney from the National Lawyers Guild.

Norm Cohen: As an untenured faculty member, I had to obtain administration permission to represent the students. I wasn't a lawyer, so I enlisted Richard Solomon, who helped us at no charge. We argued that the students were facing serious charges with potential legal repercussions, but the rules regarding the Placement Center that had allegedly been broken did not have legal force and the hearing was not a legal forum. I also argued that the 42 students were being singled out unfairly for breaking the rules when the students and faculty in the hallway had broken the same set of rules by holding up signs during the "silent vigil."

If it were my choice, I would have made it into an intellectual learning experience and canceled classes for a day to hold a ­College-wide discussion. Nothing good came out of the hearing or the penalty.

Weyler: The "trial" was packed every day and became the most exciting event on campus. We were certainly not denying our actions; in fact, we considered the trial to be another stage of the protest, a means of communicating our position regarding military recruitment at Oxy. We knew going into the trial that they would convict us of some crime or violation, because the panel appeared clearly stacked to insure conviction. The most we could hope for was some sentence that would not disrupt our education.

Layne: I felt uncomfortable testifying against people whom I actually viewed as my friends. I was not unsympathetic with them. That made my testimony even more wavering. I definitely didn't want them kicked out of school. There was a middle ground. The penalty should have been more symbolic.

Larry Caldwell, assistant professor of political science and Interim College Council member: I was a young faculty member, who had a lot of sympathy with the activist students. I would say the overwhelming majority of faculty sympathized with the students, and many of them wanted no punishment at all. My memory is that Dr. Gilman and the other administrators wanted them punished. There was a division among those who wanted zero punishment, those who wanted expulsion, and those in the middle who said suspension would be sufficient.

My own position was that it made no sense to have civil disobedience unless you were prepared to have the civil state punish you for it. And I think quite a few people had that perspective—that it was hypocritical to argue that we have a right to break the rules but we don't expect any punishment, that we're doing you a favor by breaking the rules. That made no sense to me. So I was part of the majority solution—the middle-of-the-road solution that they should be suspended for the rest of the quarter and allowed to come back in the fall.

Somehow, it became known that I was in the middle and had actually voted for suspension, and the next day, when I arrived on campus, there was an effigy hung out behind the Cooler with my name on it.

On May 15, the Interim College Council handed down its verdict: 1) The students would be suspended for the rest of the Spring Term; 2) classes in progress would be marked as Withdrawn; 3) the work could be made up in summer school or through examination, between June 16 and Dec. 1, 1969; 4) they would be required to attend a special seminar or write a "scholarly paper of at least 12 pages in which you articulate the opposite point of view to your own regarding freedom of access." Although this punishment left the door open, only 23 of the 42 went on to graduate from Oxy.

Gilman: I felt it was a Solomonic decision. It made it possible for the students to continue at Occidental. They lost credit for the term, but the council went out of its way to provide a relatively easy and direct way to make up the work. Without that provision it might have been unfair, but it made the point that we have these rules, we will administer the rules fairly, and if you don't follow the rules there will be consequences. Given the time and place, I don't think this would have created a black mark on their careers.

Hawkins: President Gilman played his cards quite well. He fended off the conservative trustees and alumni who wanted a crackdown. He kept the cops off campus and never lost complete control of the students. Nobody's head was broken. There wasn't any physical damage. By 1969, everything was chaos. It was as though he had become the zookeeper for a bunch of exotic and flighty animals, and he had to keep some semblance of order. He didn't crack down. He let it all play out.

Stinson: As one of the leaders of the demonstration, I came out pretty lucky with just the suspension. I was already accepted at the Harvard Divinity School, so I got on the phone and called the school's dean and told him I had a little problem about graduating. Little did I know that students at Harvard had taken over Memorial Hall that day in protest—probably not the best day to call an administrator. He said that the entire Divinity School faculty would vote on whether or not I could go. They did, and I got to go. I received my diploma from Occidental some time later.

Hoag: It certainly could have been a whole lot worse. I just think that there were infinite other possibilities for how to handle it—through nonviolent communication, both sides could have had their needs met. My mother was upset when I told her I'd been suspended, but she caved pretty fast when I said, "You're the one who taught me to act on my beliefs."

Don Van Atta '72: I did what I thought I was required in honesty and morality to do. I expected to be punished, although that didn't mean I had to take the punishment gracefully or that I didn't hope we'd "get away with it." As it turned out, I got off relatively easy. I was an only child, my father had passed away, and my mother was not in a position to have me live with her. After we were suspended, we were supposed to leave campus, but I actually stayed in my dorm, having no other place to go—a couple of other folks stayed too, I think—and my financial aid was never touched, presumably thanks to Ben Culley.

Weyler: The suspension caused me a great deal of personal pain within my family. My parents had worked hard to send me to Occidental, and they took this very hard. I felt that I could not go back to them and ask for more tuition funding, so I went to work as a laborer, saved money, and traveled the world. I lost my student draft deferment but refused to enter the U.S. military. I faced prison time for this refusal and therefore left the United States for Canada.

As painful as it was to leave the College under the circumstances of the suspension, I have never regretted that I stood on my moral principles and peacefully protested the Vietnam War, one of the most destructive, painful, and shameful episodes of American history. I feel pride that I contributed in some small measure to ending that dreadful war.

Paul Robert Walker '75 attended Boston University in 1971-72, when 33 students were arrested by Boston police for protesting military recruiters on campus. When he arrived at Occidental in fall 1972, he found it to be calm and conservative by comparison.

The World After Oxy

Richard Coburn was ordered to report to his draft board after his suspension and received a 4-F deferment due in part to the incident at Occidental. He graduated from UC Berkeley, went to Morocco, and became a Sufi. He is currently managing director of Project Sakinah, a nonprofit initiative focusing on awareness and prevention of family violence within the Muslim community.

Bill Hawkins continued to take an active role in ­radical politics in San Francisco before deciding he had to make a living. He moved to San Diego, went to grad school, and ended up with a "checkered" career as a computer programmer.

Les Guthman spent eight years working at NBC News, three of them as a writer and producer on "The NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw." He has produced and directed more than 40 documentaries, including two featuring Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Jerry Stinson became a minister known and respected for his commitment to social justice. Shortly after being interviewed for this article, he was arrested for protesting the violence in Gaza.

Linda Hoag became a teacher, counselor, and AIDS activist. She and Hawkins have maintained their Oxy friendship for almost 50 years.

Denny Zane became mayor of Santa Monica and is currently executive director of Move LA, dedicated to developing a better L.A. transit system.

Mark Dillon and a number of his classmates walked out of the 1969 Commencement ceremony to protest the suspensions of the sit-in activists. He received a conscientious objector deferment and went on to become a documentary filmmaker and interactive multimedia producer. To see Dillon's student film of the hunger strike and sit-in, visit.

Rex Weyler helped to create the Greenpeace ­organization and became a journalist focusing on environmental and social issues. In 2005, Zane and Weyler—introduced by Guthman—received the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute's Alumni Community Action Award.

Alex Wallace is an attorney who still believes in "the power of goodwill toward all, positivism, and optimistic goal-setting and decision-making."

Warren Clarke has "hitchhiked 2 million miles on three continents" and now follows a tara bhakti Buddhist practice and makes stained glass. Clarke and Wallace, "true-blue friends and housemates" at Oxy, are still friends and fellow philosophers.

Larry Layne became a real estate developer and property manager in the Los Angeles area. He and Denny Zane typically support the same liberal local political issues and candidates, and Zane still introduces Layne as his one-time foe in the Occidental sit-in of 1969.

Barbara Heinzen is a consultant in scenario planning and coordinates the Barbets Duet, an experiment in environmental business organized around learning sites in East Africa, England, and upstate New York. In 2007, she visited her partner-in-protest, Aditi Sarkar M'74, in India.

Don Van Atta obtained a Ph.D. in political science, focusing on the political economy of post-Soviet states. He currently leads a USAID-funded initiative supporting agrarian reform in Tajikistan.