[1] As the film's poster notes, the title is an initialism for "revolutions per minute", which at the time was a common term for the variable speed of a record player's turntable.

Set against the political turmoil of the 1960s, radical student activists occupy a university's administration building with a list of 12 demands.

After midnight, Perez, along with his sociology graduate student girlfriend Rhoda, is awakened by a phone call by Dean George Cooper, requesting a meeting.

Attempting to negotiate with the activists, Perez reads their demands, which include 20 inner-city scholarships, a college reinvestment program, no military research on campus, and an African American on the all-white Board of Trustees.

A brief conflict between the leader, Roositer, and Steve Dempsey, leads to the eighth demand changed to the hiring of a black admissions officer.

Perez serves as mediator between the faculty and the unwavering student body over the unresolved three demands, while being berated at home by Rhoda for his hypocrisy.