Washington, D.C. -- Thousands of college students across the country took to the streets and gathered on their campuses last week to protest the war in the Persian Gulf.
One of the largest anti-war rallies was held here -- in Lafayette Park, across from the White House. About 25,000 people, including thousands of students, streamed through downtown Washington after the rally in a march to the Mall between the Capitol and the Washington Monument.
“A lot of people don’t really know what we’re fighting for,” said Sylvia Casteleyan, a freshman at Loyola College in Maryland. “It’s hard to know. I’m upset about what’s happening.”
Rebecca McCullam, a May 1990 graduate of Guilford College, said she had come to the march to send the government a message that “it isn’t too late” to try to stop the war. But she added: “I think the soldiers over there are very courageous. I don’t sense a negative attitude toward the soldiers at all.”
Besides students, the crowd included mothers of some U.S. soldiers, young children, and Vietnam veterans. Protesters carried signs that said: “This War Is Stupid,” “No Blood For Oil,” and “Rich Man’s War, Black Man’s Fight.”
Many of the students said they were afraid the government would reinstate the draft, and some said they were preparing conscientious-objector files to prove that they had been genuinely opposed to the use of force.
William Steeves, a senior at the University of Rhode Island, said he and other students at Rhode Island had established an information booth on their campus where they talk to undergraduates about the possibility of a draft and how to file for conscientious-objector status.
However, some of the students who showed up at the rally said they would not hesitate to go to battle against Iraq.
“I might enlist,” said Scott Krystynak, a junior at George Mason University. “I’m going to talk to my recruiter about it. We need to stand up and fight for what we believe.”
Mr. Krystynak is the Virginia state chairman of a newly formed group called “Students Mobilized Against Saddam Hussein,” or SMASH. At one point during the rally in Lafayette Park, angry anti-war protesters surrounded Mr. Krystynak, who clutched an American flag and yelled his views in a hoarse voice. “Patriotic Americans like me got the wall to come down in Germany, and we’ll win this fight, too,” he shouted.
Thousands of other college students around the country planned to attend another anti-war march scheduled to take place in Washington last weekend.
Elsewhere, students expressed their opinions in a variety of ways:
* At the University of Michigan, 20 students sat overnight in the office of the director of research development. The students demanded that the university “redirect research away from weapons of mass destruction.” A university spokesman said the university got about 4.5 per cent of its research grants from the Defense Department.
* At the University of California at Los Angeles, 250 demonstrators held an overnight sit-in in Murphy Hall, the administration building. Many students left the next day, but 113 people who refused to leave were arrested. Students at UCLA had asked the university to cancel classes for a day so they could attend panel discussions about the war. Charles E. Young, the university’s chancellor, decided that classes should continue but that professors should allow students to attend the discussions if they wanted to.
* Utah State University and six of North Dakota’s state institutions shut down for brief periods after receiving bomb threats. No bombs were found on any of the campuses.
* Arab students at Michigan State University canceled an “Arab Awareness Week” that had been planned for last week. After the outbreak of war, many of the students were concerned about their family members and friends in the Middle East and did not feel it was appropriate to hold their awareness week, a Michigan State official said.
* At Indiana University, about 70 anti-war protesters braved single-digit temperatures and snow to camp out in 50 tents in Dunn Meadow near the student union. Counter-protesters fired bottle rockets and set off firecrackers near the tents, but no one was hurt.
* Fraternity members at Tennessee Technological University planned a dance last week to raise money for soldiers stationed in the gulf region. The members of Tau Kappa Epsilon and Sigma Alpha Epsilon also urged people coming to the dance to donate toiletries for the soldiers. The students had heard reports that the armed forces were short of razors, soap, shampoo, and other items.
