George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, addressed 2,800 students of Ohio University here and was subjected to derisive laughter. He then complained that he had “a totally different reception here than at any other of the 40 or 50 schools where I have spoken.”
Rockwell had been invited to the campus by the residents of Bush Hall, a men’s dormitory, as part of a program to raise money for a scholarship fund. University officials had refused requests by some students and faculty members, as well as by Jacob Mirviss, director of the Hillel Foundation here, to bar his appearance. The officials held that the students are entitled to “an open and free campus.”
Dr. David Levinson, professor of economics, had advocated picketing Rockwell but, at the request of Mr. Mirviss, Jewish and other anti-Rockwell students pledged not to picket or to throw eggs at the Nazi. The lecture went off peacefully, but when many of the students laughed at him, Rockwell said: “Next year, I will run for Governor of Virginia, then you will laugh out of the other sides of your mouths.”
As soon as Rockwell had finished, another faculty member, Prof. Ernest M. Collins, of the Political Science Department, told the students from the same platform “Rockwell is well versed in the art of vilification and misinterpretation.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
