students throughout the United States were involved in protest actions against the: undemocratic draft deferment tests held May 14 under government sponsorship. The main organization behind the actions was the Students for a Democratic Society.
Besides picket lines, sit-ins were staged at some universities — and some 400 students occupied the administration building at the University of Chicago.
In New ‘York, * Tom Hayden, one of: “the leaders: of: the SDS, told reporters: "These’ tests - invite students to escape the draft. and let Negroes, working and poor people who cannot afford college to go fight this war. It invites students to compete with each other to decide who will study and who will die."
_ In many universities, professors have expressed. sympathy with . the demonstrators. At Columbia University in New ‘York, a group of. professors held a press conference at which ‘they: urged | "as radical . a separation of the activities of the Selective Service administration from the educational - enterprise as ‘possible.
‘Even the New York Times felt ‘compelled to: say something about the undemocratic nature of the tests. In an editorial May 14, the. powerful daily declared: "Deferment of college students places most. of the burden of military service on the shoulders of the very poor or the academically untalented. This smacks of a caste system, in which prolonged education can readily turn deferment into exemption. |
Michael Klare, a student antiwar leader at Columbia ‘University, pointed to another side of the reaction to the tests: "We feel that each of the students taking: the test. is. protesvang against the war by trying to get out of it.
— WING