I have several issues with the letter printed in The Post on the anniversary of the Kent State shootings. To begin, Mr. Hoffman's recollection of that turbulent era is not historically accurate, and regardless of the fact that I wasn't alive in 1970, I am literate and have spent a good deal of time researching the events of May 1970. Therefore, though I cannot reasonably expect the author to remember the fine print of his experience at Ohio University, upon reading his letter I was able to point with reasonable accuracy to the fallacies of his presentation of events.
However, the fact that the author met with Edward Bernays the day of the Kent shooting is indicative of the extent to which we should be alert to the subtle manipulation of history. The author tells us that Ohio University closed at 3 a.m., but what day? After reading his letter several times, it appears to have been the same day as the shootings - May 4. In fact, Ohio University did not close for another ten days after the shootings at Kent State. While universities around the state were closing their doors, then-President of OU Claude Sowle - in his first year here in Athens - tried to keep our university open, and was successful for a week and a half. Teachers, administrators and students all participated in teach-ins held all over campus.
It may seem as if I am getting all riled up for a mere slip of the pen, but these are not inane details - they are the fabric of history and he is ripping them to shreds. In keeping with the defective nature of his account, Mr. Hoffman also suggests that the National Guard arrived before the university closed, presumably May 4. Not true. The National Guard did not arrive until President Sowle, after ten days and at 3 a.m., canceled classes, final exams and commencement.
Why are these details so important, and why am I upset enough to respond in print? In blurring the chronology of that fateful month, Mr. Hoffman fails to place Ohio University within a historical context, thereby glossing over a potentially important catalyst in the closing of our university. In doing so, he perpetuates popular ignorance of the historical record to the detriment of the scholars of Ohio University.
It is possible, but not probable, that President Sowle had planned all along to close the university in the dead of night, despite the amount of work he had done to keep this institution open to the students it served. It is more likely that in light of the confluence of factors, which included 23 OU students seeking medical treatment at Hudson, and 54 Bobcats in jail, the news of yet another student murder by official forces would be enough to compromise the safety of his students even further.
I cannot imagine that Mr. Hoffman himself is unaware that May 14, 1970, also marked the beginning of the struggle between police forces and Jackson State University students in Mississippi, a struggle that around midnight of May 14, two students would die while leaving 12 others wounded.
Federal investigators sent to the campus of this historically black university found evidence of a total of 460 rounds fired, in comparison with the 67 shells collected at Kent State. One of the men killed in Jackson, a 17-year-old high school student walking home from work, was shot while behind the line of police that had driven the protesting students up against the wall of a dorm on campus. The barrage of bullets broke every single window on that side of the dorm, and bullet holes still scar the façade.
I appreciate that Mr. Hoffman would think of his alumni newspaper so long after he finished college, but in confusing the sequence of events that fateful spring, he fails to demonstrate that neither students, nor universities exist in a vacuum, and that official harassment, intimidation and murder were not confined to northeastern Ohio that month. It seems incredible that the outrage of Jackson State has not equaled or exceeded that which we commemorate each May 4. I propose that on this 40th anniversary we begin to teach the unabridged version of history, and strive to untangle the hidden biases that lead us to study one moment in history and not another. We must remember that each life is as precious as the next, phenotypes be damned.
Mary Forfia is a sophomore studying Spanish.
4 Opinion
Letter to the Editor
