Connecting the Dots: "This case is an outrage to me!"

The Kent State shootings – also known as the May 4 massacre or Kent State massacre – occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970, exactly forty years ago.  The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.

Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the American invasion of Cambodia, which President Richard Nixon announced in a television address on April 30. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.

There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of four million students, and the event further affected the public opinion – at an already socially contentious time – over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.

At the time of the Kent State shooting, I was 16 years old and a junior in high school, The Central High School of Philadelphia.  I have only one recollection of the shooting.  At that time I was taking a French class taught by Sylvain Boni, Ph.D.; I still remember it was a first period class.

Dr. Boni was outraged by the shooting and talked about it in class. He was particularly disturbed by people who sided with the government's use of overweening power against the students. Speaking metaphorically, Dr. Boni's response was like that of a federal judge who is outraged by Justice Department attorneys who defend the federal government's arbitrary treatment of a private individual.

Strange that I should remember that after forty years.  I wonder if Fredric L. Cohen, M.D. or David Seltzer, Esq. -- also students in that class -- remember that significant moment in French class?

Dr. Boni earned in his Ph.D. in philosophy.  His thesis concerned the work of the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who, perhaps not merely coincidentally, was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam war.

Sylvain Boni is the author of The Self and the Other in the Ontologies of Sartre and Buber.

Incidentally, I find it interesting that many law enforcement officers seem unable to identify the indicators of conscience in an individual -- and time and time again, as at Kent State -- identify with the state against the individual: in some cases individuals whose actions are motivated by conscience and not by an intent to break the law.  It seems that some people go into law enforcement not to uphold "the right," but to carry out the orders of The Powers That Be.