Campus Antiwar Network History

Carol Cartwright
President
Kent State University

Dear Professor Cartwright:

I write to express my profound indignation at your treatment of David Airhart, a student on your campus.

This, evidently is what ‘supporting the troops’ really means — arrest and possible expulsion for showing the world that while Kent State may be an infamous epithet on the lips of the antiwar movement, the people of Kent, Ohio will not bear responsibility for the actions of those in charge.

That this kind of repression would happen to any student at any university is shameful enough, but for it to happen at Kent State, where the blood-soaked memories of days past are immortalized in word and song, is particularly heinous.

I will not bother with the arguments for free speech; the basic immorality of this war; the obvious fact that Dave Airhart should be celebrated, not put on the chopping block to please your cohorts at Army HQ. Instead, I will tell you this: we in the antiwar movement, and the majority of people in this country that recognize the lies and deceptions of Bush and his cronies and the need for an end to the occupation of Iraq, will be watching your actions over the coming weeks. We will not be silent as one of our brothers is sacrificed in the scurrilous name of military recruitment and for the war to which you are now most certainly an accomplice.

Cordially,

Michael Smith
University of California, Berkeley
Member of the ‘Berkeley 3′