Hippies, Yippies, Zippies, and those who tolerate them and their ilk: The 1970 Wilmington College Yearbook Controversy

SPRING 2012 27 “Hippies, Yippies, Zippies, and those who tolerate them and their ilk”The 1970 Wilmington College Yearbook Controversy Sharon Drees A t the Quaker institution of Wilmington College, 1970 is remembered as “the year of the book.” Ask a former student, faculty, or administrator about the yearbook, the Wilmingtonian, distributed that year, and you will likely elicit a smile and a story about the controversy it caused. Due to its scarcity and the fragile nature of the physical copies held by the college’s Watson Library, the 1970 yearbook is not available for public display. However, when the director of the Peace Resource Center on Wilmington’s campus requested a copy for an event held on World Peace Day in 2011, the library provided an electronic copy on a flash drive so that interested visitors could view it on a computer in the center. In response to the amount of nudity in the yearbook, D. Neil Snarr, retired professor of sociology and global studies, quipped that a “flash” drive was an appropriate medium for viewing it. Former faculty and administrators can laugh about the yearbook today, but its publication in 1970 became a serious matter when a small group of local conservative leaders, calling themselves the Wilmington Citizens Council (WCC), vehemently protested the yearbook and called into question the judgment and credibility of the faculty and administrators who allowed students to produce and make it public. Robert McCoy, an administrator from 1963 to 1989, called it “the biggest crisis we had here.” The publicity and criticism surrounding the yearbook left administrators scrambling to reclaim the college’s image as a reputable institution and appease donors who swore they would never again support Wilmington College.1 The 1970 yearbook controversy provides a lens through which to view student and faculty activism and “town and gown” relations in the small community of Wilmington, Ohio, during a tumultuous period. The controversy proved a watershed moment that ultimately changed the manner in which students, faculty , and administrators at Wilmington College, an institution founded on principles of personal and public Christian morality and responsibility, approached local and national reform. In addition to the controversial material, the yearbook included vivid and beautiful imagery that showed reasonable but determined student and faculty activists protesting against the war in Vietnam and supporting “HIPPIES, YIPPIES, ZIPPIES, AND THOSE WHO TOLERATE THEM AND THEIR ILK” 28 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY the ongoing struggle for civil rights for African Americans, equality for women, and environmental reform. Although often public and individualized and sometimes confrontational, the demonstrations remained nonviolent. The ideals the protestors espoused and the methods they employed adhered to Quaker ethical principles. However, the culture of student activism and the individual behavior of some students strayed from Quaker morality. The prominent references to drugs and sexuality in the yearbook deeply offended many conservative members of the Wilmington community and many older Friends who valued self control, modesty, and individual moral virtue above political and social change. Community members and even some supporters of the college decried the liberal —even revolutionary—political views the yearbook promoted. By drawing attention to the yearbook’s most controversial aspects—particularly its revolutionary political content, profanity, and explicit photographs—the Wilmington Citizens Council undermined the progressive political and social concerns of student and faculty activists, and weakened local opposition to the conservative political views and authority the council supported. Cover letter from the Wilmington Citizens Council pamphlet of 1970. COURTESY OF WATSON LIBRARY, WILMINGTON COLLEGE, OHIO SHARON DREES SPRING 2012 29 The creative and nonviolent forms of demonstration and protest initiated by students and faculty at this small Ohio Valley college, with less than one thousand students in 1970, presented a significant threat to the local and national conservative political agenda. An important body of evidence suggests that the leading members of the WCC acted in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to discredit the college and curtail the activism of its administration, faculty, and students. Certainly, the efforts of local conservative leaders mirrored tactics regularly employed by the FBI to curb protests against the Vietnam War. The WCC’s agitation ultimately succeeded in thwarting the forms of public protest in which...