Where Is S.I. Hayakawa Now That Universities Really Need Him?

The outbreak of student protests — and resulting violence, in some cases — over the conflict between Israel and Hamas has provoked numerous reminiscences of and comparisons to the anti-Vietnam protests that rocked the campuses of 1968.

As the campus protests spread, a few who remember the youthquake of the late 1960s inevitably ask: "Where is S.I. Hayakawa now that we really need him?"

Samuel Ichiye (Sam) Hayakawa was a renowned semanticist and author of "Language In Thought And Action" — a guide to how people use words to advance their own agendas that is to this day used as a college textbooks. The Canadian-born son of Japanese immigrants, Hayakawa loved tap dancing and occasionally wrote the liner notes for jazz albums.

All of this seemed unusual training for the English professor who would be named interim president of San Francisco State College (now University) in November 1968. In events that drew international organization, students went on strike to establish an ethnic studies program. The Black Student Union led the strike and were soon joined by the militant Black Panthers, the anti-Vietnam War Students For A Democratic Society (SDS), and the counterculture (in the parlance of the time, "hippies").

Gene Prat, Hayakawa's closest associate and onetime assistant professor of business and assistant to the dean of the business school at San Francisco State, recalled to Newsmax how Hayakawa, known to those closest to him as Don, faced the pending crisis.

"Don based on general semantics principles, believed in open communication, constructive dialogue, and incremental continuous improvement as the best ways to resolve human conflict," said Prat.

Once appointed interim president, Prat noted, "Don extended to the students and to the faculty broadcasting views in opposition to his, an invitation to discuss in an open forum, a pathway for compromise that would benefit the interests of the majority of the students attending SFSC."

But it was not to be. The response from the opposition was the presentation to Hayakawa of "10 nonnegotiable demands" — among them a Black studies department to be chaired by sociologist Nathan Hare, complete independence from the university administration for Hare and the program, and open admission for all Black students. In a sign that the situation at SFSC was drifting away from its initial goal, striking students also demanded an immediate end to the Vietnam War.

"Hayakawa Has No Powah!" striking students chanted as the president tried to address students and faculty. He replied that they should "get the h*** out of here!"

The SF State strike reached a crescendo in November when students brought out a sound truck to campus to shout obscenity-riddled slogans. Wearing his favorite Scottish tam-o'-shanter and horn-rimmed glasses, the diminutive Hayakawa appeared and suddenly mounted the truck. As students and other observers looked on in stunned silence, the college president ripped out the wires of the sound truck. He then announced that the police would be called in.

The film of Hayakawa tearing out the wires of the sound truck was viewed all over the world and it made him a folk hero.

The SFSC president was fortunate in that his efforts had a strong supporter in California's then-new Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan. Gene Prat remembered, "We had a group of nine faculty members and called ourselves 'The Faculty Renaissance.' Don was our leader, and his writings and the work of our group brought Don to the attention of the governor and led to his appointment as ... president."

Reagan called, Prat added, "and asked Don how things were going on campus. Without a word, Don opened the window and held the phone out for the governor to hear the demonstrators showing obscenities."

Taking a page from Hayakawa's book, Reagan spoke out against the riots at the University of California, Berkeley a year later and told a group of educators who had gathered in his office: "They were going to physically destroy the university ... All of it began the first time some of you who know better and are old enough to know better let young people think they had the right to choose the laws they would obey as long as they were doing it in the name of social protest."

When things on campus calmed down in December 1968 and Hare and Company were making their requests calmly and peacefully, Hayakawa announced that the college would indeed have a Black studies program.

Much as one hears a growing contempt for Democrats who refused to denounce the campus protests and anti-Israel actions from students, Hayakawa grew disgusted at the party with which he had been affiliated since he could vote. After retiring as college president in 1973, he switched his registration from Democrat to Republican. Three years later, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and retired in 1983. In 1992, Hayakawa died at age 85.

Along with being California's only U.S. senator of Japanese-American heritage, S.I. Hayakawa was the lone Japanese-American president of San Francisco State — not to mention, a world-renowned semanticist. There are no buildings or anything named for him on campus.

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.