On April 15, 1970, demonstrators threw rocks, firecrackers and torches at windows of the University’s ROTC building in protest of the administration’s decision to keep an Army and ROTC presence on campus during the Vietnam war.
“Smash ROTC,” was the resounding cry (“Police, demonstrators clash on ROTC,” April 16, 1970, ODE).
The violence was part of several anti-war protests against the administration’s 199-185 vote to retain the ROTC.
For the first time in the University’s campus history, police used tear gas to subdue the crowd, but no arrests were made.
The protesters were fighting for a cause they believed in.
On May 5, 1970, just one day after the Kent State shootings, 200 people again threw rocks at the ROTC building to protest the ROTC’s presence on campus.
Although the police surrounded the area, they made no arrests and withdrew because “‘student leaders said they could do a better job’” without police presence (“To protect ROTC building, police called by University,” May 5, 1970, ODE).
The students were fighting for a cause they believed in.
On Sept. 24, 2010, drunken partygoers flooded the streets in the highly student-populated West University neighborhood and damaged public and private property.
When the police asked the 400-person crowd to disperse, the people yelled, resisted and became violent.
The police used tear gas when they saw no other option to get the crowd to respond to their request.
This time, there was no just cause or reason for students to riot or protest — and yet they did — synchronously chanting “fuck the police” the whole way through.
Eugene used to have something to get up in arms about. The University has had a rich history of activism and advocacy.
The city experienced heightened activism and protesting in response to the war during the 1960s and 1970s, but it had to end at some point.
After the anti-war efforts, several anarchist riots peppered the next few decades in Eugene. Though their intention may have been heinous, they still had a social cause which they were willing to risk their safety for.
But now, college students stopped having a true ideological cause to fight for: Students are fighting senselessly for no cause at all.
In 1970, as well as today, the use of police force on campus has been questioned in relation to rioting students.
Whether or not the use of anti-riot equipment was warranted is debatable, but the fact that people chose to practice civil disobedience with no just cause is wrong.  
No matter the means of ending it, the Sept. 24 riot was a meaningless demonstration of students’ power to go out, get drunk and create a disturbance — and it wasn’t the first.
From 1996 to 2010, there have been at least four riots with more than 200 people involved:
• In 1996, 200 people rioted on University Street.
• In 1997, 300 people rioted on East 17th Avenue and Alder Street.
• In 1998, 100 people rioted at the 1997 site again.
• In 2002, 400 people rioted on East 17th Avenue and Patterson Street.
All of these disruptions have been linked to partying and alcohol. It became almost an annual Halloween tradition — not a just display of disobedience.
Police have arrested participants in more recent riots, and the fact that these outbreaks have no reasonable intentions, may factor into this.
What began as a politically charged movement to protest and fight for causes that matter has become rioting for the sake of being obnoxious.
And it’s making a mockery of times when students fought for what they believed in.
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