Protesters Disrupt Lecture at College

Ventura County sheriff’s deputies were summoned to California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks Monday night to quell a disturbance at an environmental lecture.

Mark Davis, a representative of the Earth First! environmental group, was addressing about 200 people in the Preus-Brandt Forum on the Cal Lutheran campus when about 40 members of a group calling themselves the Sahara Club rose together. They removed their shirts to display black T-shirts showing an Earth First! member buried upside down in the desert with only his legs exposed.

The protesters went on stage and surrounded Davis until Dean Ron Kragthorpe restored order by allowing a representative of the Sahara Club to speak for five minutes.

Davis was allowed to resume his speech, but the heckling started again, and the Sheriff’s Department was called. At the end of the lecture, the protesters got up and simultaneously obtained refunds of their $5 admission fee, an arrangement to which Kragthorpe had agreed. No arrests were made.