Twenty-five years ago, more than 300 students stormed University Hall and forced Harvard into an era marked by protest and student activism.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a radical student political group, made six demands concerning ROTC and Harvard's expansion into working class neighborhoods.

As part of the takeover, the students forcibly removed all Harvard administrators from the building by 12:45 p.m. on April 9, 1969. Fourteen hours later, the protests were wrested out of the building by a massive police raid that led to more than 300 arrests, fractured bones and cerebral concussions.

President Nathan M. Pusey '28, who ordered the raid, dismissed the demands with an official statement the night of the takeover.

"Can anyone belive the SDS demands are made seriously?" Pusey said. "How can one respond to allegations which have no basis in fact?"

But statements from other Harvard administrators in the next few weeks revealed that the SDS demands were based on more truth than Pusey claimed.

One of the SDS demands was that Harvard not destroy 182 units of housing in the Medical School area for a new training and research hospital. "[No] homes [are] being torn down to make way for Harvard Medical School expansion," Pusey said in his statement.

Two days later, though, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine Robert H. Ebert acknowledged their plans to construct a new building which would require the eviction of the tenants of 182 homes.

Pusey also denied that the University Road apartments were going to be demolished for the Kennedy Memorial Library, which is now the site of the Kennedy School of Government. "There are no plans to tear down any apartments on University Road," Pusey said.

Contrary to Pusey's claim, however, Assistant Professor of City Planning Chester W. Hartman said the University Road apartments would probably be demolished.

"[University Planning Officer, Harold] Goyette...indicated that there is a very strong possibility that the University Road apartments will, in fact, shortly be demolished," Hartman said.

SDS claimed that the lies in Pusey's statement reflected an attempt to discredit the takeover.

"President Pusey knows that sooner or later students will reject all these lines, just as they have in the past," SDS wrote in response to Pusey's statement. "He wanted to lay the groundwork for the brutal arrests of the University Hall demonstrators."

Chain of Events

"We have occupied the building and we are going to close down the University until our demands are met," the occupiers told the deans as they were forced out of the building.