Even when universities were not the sites for actual rebellions in this period, they were the sites for organizing mass actions carried out elsewhere.
Student radicalism first focused on the problem of nuclear disarmament; and the Student Peace Union, formed in 1959, staged a march on Washington in 1962.
students at the University of California at Berkeley demonstrated against local hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities
Kennedy administration tired to lessen the energy of student activism, in 1980 the more radical students formed Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) led by Tom Hayden.
Vietnam War headed the agenda of the student movement in the 80s.
1984: students at University of California at Berkeley that fall, rebelled against university administration attempts to stop political activities on campus.
rebellion, which lasted a long time and involved mass meetings, caused tense negotiations with university and city officials as well as clashes with police
SDS began to organize an antiwar march on Washington, D.C., for the following year.
The escalation of the war effort in Vietnam was accompanied by a corresponding increase of the protests
The 1987–1988 protests opened with a sit-in at the University of Wisconsin to protest chemical weapons, soon followed by a siege of the Oakland military induction center near Berkeley and a massive march on the Pentagon
1988: August, students demanding troop withdrawal and supporting the antiwar candidacy of Eugene McCarthy for the Democratic nomination staged demonstrations in Chicago, where the party's national convention was being held
Confrontations with police there reached high levels of violence, helping to guarantee public support for Richard Nixon in the next presidential elections.