Four Dead in Ohio

Certain moments in our lives are underlined in our memory. People my age clearly remember where they were and what they were doing on the day that President Kennedy was killed. September 11, 2001, is similarly etched into our memory. And, at least for me, May 4, 1970, is such an unforgettable date.

It was our last year of law school, and graduation was approaching. Our Spring Quarter classes were almost completed and final exams appeared to be the last hurdle to obtaining our Juris Doctor degrees and our confrontation with the Bar Exam. But events were about to throw a monkey wrench into our anticipated pathways.

The nation was embroiled in conflict over the seemingly unending war in Vietnam. The draft was in full force and nearly 50,000 young American men had already lost their lives in the bloody confrontation. Students on campuses all over the country were protesting the war, the draft, and the failure of Richard Nixon to fulfill his promise, made during his 1968 campaign for President, to end the war.

I was completing my term as Editor-in-Chief of the Ohio State Law Journal that Spring, and I was in my office in the basement of the OSU Law School building on that day in May. About 1:00 that afternoon, one of my classmates burst in and said, "The National Guard killed a bunch of students at Kent State. It was a bloodbath." At first, I didn't believe him. How could this happen? I experienced the same optimistic skepticism I had felt when I was first told that Kennedy had been shot.

But the radio in my office soon confirmed that the shootings had occurred. Four students were killed; others were wounded. The war had come home.

The OSU campus exploded. Students took to the Oval, the great, green space in the center of the campus, in anger. It was impossible to move around the campus as thousands protested and called for the end of the war and the restoration of peace. Classes were disrupted; the Ohio Highway Patrol chased protesters from one part of the campus to another. The mood was ugly. A rock was thrown through a window at the Law School.

Word spread throughout the Law School that a meeting of the students would be held in one of the large classrooms. Mike Schwarzwalder (later to be elected as a member of the Ohio Senate), who was President of the OSU Student Bar Association, asked me, as Editor-in-Chief, to co-chair the meeting. The atmosphere was dominated by fear and anger. The law students voted overwhelmingly that Mike and I should approach the faculty and request that the Law School be closed in the interests of safety, and, for many of us, as a demonstration of our anger over the events at Kent State.

The law faculty was meeting at the same time the law students were assembled. Mike and I went to the faculty meeting room and asked to speak. We reported the wishes and concerns of the law students. We were thanked and then ushered out. We learned that a couple of hours later, representatives of the law faculty met with university officials and the decision was made to shut down the campus.

The Law School was closed for ten days. We ended up taking all our last quarter classes "pass/fail." The Ohio Supreme Court waived its required class hours rule so we could take the Bar Exam. Our lives went on, but for four unarmed Kent State students it all ended on that day in May. I will never forget.