BY STEVEN DUBOIS
Associated Press Writer
EUGENE, Ore. – The students stomped their feet, heckled and then stood and turned their backs as the speaker at the University of Oregon defended red-baiting Sen. Joseph McCarthy and called Martin Luther King Jr. a communist dupe.
With more than 30 security officers assigned to keep the peace, the 90-something patriarch of the group sat in a wheelchair next to the speaker, silently observing the spectacle while at times half-asleep.
A campus with a reputation for young, leftist radicals has been roiled in protest in recent weeks as the aging collection of extremists – deemed a hate group by those who track the issue – has intensified its message, including a Hitler salute at an event in December.