November 8, 1967: SDS vs. Dow Chemical at UW

Students for a Democratic Society never loved the smell of napalm in the morning--or anytime--and in Autumn 1967, SDS organized a series of nationwide protests against on-campus recruiting by Dow Chemical, makers of the aforementioned jellied gasoline then being used in horrific ways by the US military in Vietnam.

On the date in focus here, the University of Washington was host to such a protest, delivered by a coalition between SDS and the UW-specific Vietnam Committee. Its de facto leader was Robby Stern, a law student and highly visible UW SDS organizer. It began with a noontime rally in the Husky Union Building featuring a speech by the UW's highly student-popular history professor Giovanni Costigan, who lamented how "[l]ittle by little [the Vietnam War] has emerged into a war against the civilian population." Other speakers included UW SDS organizer Stephanie Coontz, who lamented the moral implications of napalm. From the HUB, the crowd, numbering nearly 500, pursued a snaky route through campus which finally ended in Guggenheim Hall, where a Dow recruiter was interviewing job applicants. The protest ended peacefully and succeeded in drawing local attention to Dow's complicity in ongoing Vietnam atrocities.

While SDS was revived nationally in early 2006, a new UW chapter has yet to emerge. Today, Stern remains politically active in Seattle as a labor leader, while Coontz teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College. --Jeff Stevens. Source: UW Daily archives.