Daily m Trojan
Volume LXXIII, Number 41
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Monday, April 17, 1978
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Oifferent means to end a war
Draft card burner works to change social, political system from outside
By Gigi Golden
Feature Editor
Daniel Brandt is a political activist who believes in working for change from outside the system.
He has always worked from the outside. “That’s my style,” he says.
As an undergraduate here from 1965 to 1969, Brandt was deeply involved in the radical student movement protesting the Vietnam War. He organized and participated in a number of campus demonstrations against the war and the draft, started an underground student newspaper in 1968, was a well-known counselor on draft evasion and a leader of the radical university group, Students for a Democratic Society.
In 1969, he was convicted, in a decision that was later reversed, of violating the Selective Service Act by refusing to appear for the military physical and refusal of induction.
But throughout his involvement in political activism, Brandt has remained unassuming, soft-spoken and quietly persistent. He has preferred to stand outside the political arena in his work.
“I feel I can be more effective by initiating issues at several levels rather than by a grass roots political coalition,” he said.
Brandt entered the university as a student in pre-
medicine and was uninvolved in the radical movement. In 1967, he decided not to enter the medical field and started taking sociology and psychology courses.
It was during the summer of 1967, between his sophomore and junior years, that he turned his attention to political and social issues. He said he had read several books on U.S. involvement in Vietnam, which he said influenced him a great deal.
When he returned to school, he became active in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a nationwide organization that was an influencial impetus for much of the antiwar movement. In the fall of 1968. Brandt served as cochairman of the organization.
Brandt said the first antiwar demonstration he remembers was held by SDS in the spring of 1967, when around eight students picketed the annual military recruitment munitions display.
He said Campus Security was dumbfounded by the protest. “They just collected the IDs of the protesters and then gave them back,” he said. “They didn’t really know what to do.’”
During the 1968-69 school year, SDS had a steady membership, with a core of about 15 people. The organization sponsored various speakers and distributed literature to students.
(continued on page 2)
Antiwar activist leans toward reform of government by grass-roots coalition
By David Hall
Assistant Editorial Director
From Cambodia to Kent State to Sacramento to the White House to this university, actions are taken regardless of their consequences. People must talk, listen, reason, live. Students must not vacation during a shutdown, but rather must utilize political means to institute reform.
Only then can this nation proudly unify.
—Daily Trojan May 8,1970
The face of USC, and the face of the world, was changing drastically in spring 1970. And the Daily Trojan May 8 of that year brought the issue at the university to a head.
The edition consisted only of a front-page editorial entitled “Concern?” and seven pages of advertising and white space. The secret invasion of Cambodia had been discovered, Nixon’s sanctioning of “the most vicious tactics” against political dissenters had forced his youth adviser, Anthony J. Moffett, to resign and four students, who were killed when national guardsmen opened fire into a group of protesters at Kent State, were being buried.
Meanwhile, the editorial pointed out the majority of the country’s population was content with watching My Favorite Martian and Family Affair on television.
Sam Hurst and a few thousand students and faculty members at the university were not. They staged an unprecedented classroom boycott. The editorial quoted Hurst, the president of Associated Students of Southern California (ASSC), as saying he was not going back to classes for the remainder of the semester and “if they don’t give me credit for these classes, then you will not have a student body president next year.”
Hurst received his credit, as did the other strikers when university President Norman Topping sanctioned the strike, and the ASSC president became one of the leaders of a surprisingly large antiwar movement at the university.
Now, the war is over and Hurst has found a new movement He is the staff director for Tom Hayden’s organization, Campaign for Economic Democracy (CED), which is based in Los Angeles.
“The idea that USC is a conservative school is built around two things,” Hurst said while sitting at his desk in the CED headquarters. “The way the administration and trustees promote the school’s image. They want people to believe USC is a probusi-ness, conservative school.
“Number two, a large collection of the student body lives on the Row, which is a very probusiness, conservative community.
(continued on page 3)
. . .NOW — Hurst and Brandt are shown above as they are today: still working for social and political reform, each in different ways. Brandt is concerned with CIA covert activities, while Hurst is seeking a grass-roots political coalition. DT photos by Paul Rodriguez.
THEN. . . — Sam Hurst (above) and Daniel Brandt (right) are shown as student protesters at USC in the late 1960s. While both urged the ending of the Vietnam War, each fought for that goal in different ways.. Brandt, who grew out of an earlier radical tradition, is shown burning his draft card in front of Bovard Auditorium in 1968. And at a massive antiwar rally in May of 1970, Hurst, then president of the student body here, urged students to abandon books and work for peace.