Robert M. Greene papers

Robert Greene was a graduate student at the University of Colorado during the late 1960’s and the early 1970’s. Greene was involved with many aspects of the campus, specifically with the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). This organization was a vital part of the campus and how the campus has evolved to what it is today. SDS started in 1960 in Ann Arbor, Michigan and quickly spread from there to other University campuses across the country. SDS was formed to criticize the government for failing to achieve international peace and other foreign policy failures. The group was also critical of the government for domestic issues, related to racial discrimination, big business, and trade unions. The University of Colorado branch of SDS protested similar issues as the other branches of SDS, but their protests were more centralized to Colorado issues along with the broader national issues.

The University and the Regents had raised the grade point average (GPA) from 1.5 to 2.0 for all clubs and organizations on the campus. Unlike many of the other clubs or organizations SDS didn’t place grade restrictions on their participants. SDS felt this restricted opportunities for students on the campus. The Vietnam War’s draft was one of the reasons the students and SDS protested the GPA increase. Many students weren’t able to maintain that high of a GPA and were as a result drafted into the war effort. Greene was one of the many students who worked hard to maintain the high GPA requirements. In addition he also attended school year round to maintain his student status to avoid the draft.

One of SDS’s first major protests was in October of 1967 when the group blocked the entrance to the Stadium Building from representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The CIA was on the campus to conduct job interviews. The presence of the SDS on CU’s campus only increased from that first protest. The SDS national group decided to hold its annual conference on the campus in October of 1968. The actual conference wasn’t the problem; it was the fact that a riot erupted between the press and the SDS conference attendees. The SDS people didn’t want what was said at that meeting to be recorded in any way and by the press “crashing” the conference they felt they would be prosecuted for what was to be said in the conference. SDS held their position for not having the press at the conference by comparing themselves to the Regent Meetings. The Regents never had the press at their meetings, but after the SDS conference the Regents soon were allowing the press into their meetings. Another event that occurred on the campus with SDS was the protest of the S.I. Hayakawa speech in March of 1969. Hayakawa was very opposed to student protests on campuses across the country. When he arrived on the campus many people from SDS were in the audience of his speech and heckled him as he approached the podium. The result was Hayakawa heckled the audience and a small melee occurred at the foot of the stage. Even though there were other groups involved with the SDS in the heckling, SDS got the majority of discipline from the University.