Arrested at Hayes

The legacy of the spring 1970 unrest at UB lives on in many ways, in myth and fact.

Every freshman who moves into the Ellicott Complex hears the rumor, in the first few weeks, that the maze-like North Campus complex was built to prevent mass student protests - an architectural response to the clashes with police that made national headlines in 1970.

Myth or fact? No one knows for sure.

But there are dozens of people at UB who can help separate some of the myths of those weeks from the facts. Among them are 11 professors who were among 45 faculty members arrested for a peaceful sit-in on March 15, 1970, during the police occupation of campus.

English professor Jim Swan and history professor Michael Frisch were among the crowd assembled in Hayes Hall, asking for a conference with Acting President Peter Regan concerning the prevalence of police violence toward students on campus.

The police occupation of campus, nearly unprecedented for an American university, met with "close-to-general opposition from faculty," according to Frisch.

Regan and administrator Edward Doty called the police to campus on Feb. 25 after some debris was thrown at campus cops near Norton Union. The police clashed with students that night, and were called back to campus a few days later. They stayed on campus for two tense weeks.

"The police were called in because the administration didn't know what to do," Swan said. "My most vivid memories of the time were those of violence."

According to Frisch, the university seemed to be under martial law.

"Everywhere you looked, there were squads of police with rifles," said Frisch.

Before the police arrived, the campus protests were not overwhelmingly out of control, Frisch said, but after hundreds of students witnessed the brutality of the police, students responded en masse.

"Everything came together to make it combustible. The cops didn't want to be there and the kids didn't want to be there (conflicting with the police). It brought out the worst in everyone," said Frisch.

Bruce Jackson, professor of American Studies, who was part of the faculty at the time, although not part of the Buffalo 45, said he remembered one particular instance of violence and mistrust between the police and students.

From the window of the WBFO office, Jackson said he witnessed the police shooting tear gas canisters into the women's dormitory while the chief of the Buffalo Police Department was on the news radio denying the use of tear gas on campus.

Swan said all the parties involved in the unrest were reluctant to seek compromise.

"People draw themselves up into hard and fast postures and it is hard to communicate over them," Swan said.

According to Swan and Frisch this lack of communication and the growing violence was the focus of their meeting on a quiet Sunday morning in Hayes Hall in 1970.

The 45 faculty members intended to stay until they were able to speak with Regan, UB's acting president, with whom they had an appointment.

He never arrived, but the police came in his place.

"We are a self-governing university," Swan said. "We were conscious that we were acting on our authority to act responsibly and address the situation, to do something reasonable to protect the students and the university. But there was no dialogue, just violence," he said.

Frisch recalls the faculty's near decision to strike if teaching should continue under martial law.

"There was a question of 'Who is making these decisions? Who decided to send our kids to Vietnam, the same people who are making decisions now? Who is the university?' Faculty and students - not the administration," said Frisch.

The 45 faculty members were arrested on an injunction - a court order, in the absence of a law, which allowed police to arrest people causing disruptions at UB. Frisch said he believes the administration was simply looking for "someone to blame" when they made the arrests, particularly since nothing disruptive happened.

According to Swan, the group was held at the Bailey Precinct and was later taken down to the Erie County Holding Center.

The Courier-Express, Buffalo's morning newspaper at the time, published the names and addresses of the Buffalo 45, causing the professors to get hate mail and harassment from an unsympathetic Buffalo community, Frisch said.

Though they were released after eight hours in prison, the Buffalo 45 still faced a trial that promised steep legal fees. To help pay for the trial, some of them put out a song entitled "Hayes Hall Blues," sung by Vizzy Goth and the Vicious Vandals. Frisch was Vizzy, and the Vicious Vandals were named for a phrase that Regan used about the dissenters in an address to the Buffalo community.

The song, which documents the event, can be viewed online through UB Today's Web site.

For many students, the unrest of that time seems light years away, and unlikely to happen these days. But Frisch said he doesn't believe today's students are very much different from those in 1970, just that politics had real consequences at that time, and people were responsive.

"The key is when people connect big issues to their lives, not some abstract thing like where they stand in politics," said Frisch. "An issue came up that couldn't be avoided," he said.

Jackson said he noticed a 20 percent increase in the amount of college-aged individuals who voted in last year's election over those who voted in the election four years ago, before the launch of the war.

"The times are complex now. If I were a student now I would find them confusing and stimulating," Jackson said. "But it takes a lot of work to find out what's going on. It's not just what you see on the TV."