In a televised address to the nation on April 30, 1970, President Richard Nixon announced the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia.

On May 4, poorly trained Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire without warning on protesters, killing four students and wounding ten others during a large demonstration at the school.

On May 7, violent protests began at the University of Washington with some students smashing windows in their Applied Physics laboratory and throwing rocks at the police while chanting "the pigs are coming!

[10] Walkouts and protests were reported by the National Strike Information Center on at least 883 campuses across the country, with heavy concentrations in New England, the Midwest, and California.

"[12] On May 4, 1970, an estimated 3,000 Ohio University (OU) students met to discuss the possibility of a peaceful strike on the Athens campus in response to the invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State shootings.

It began on the College Green and traveled past the Athens County Selective Service Office and the National Guard Armory.

[16] On May 8, twenty-five students from the newly formed Committee on Issues and Action (COIA) met with President Sowle at the university airport after he returned from Washington where he appeared on a national television program on Vietnam and campus protests.

[17] On Saturday, May 10, COIA members met with President Sowle about cancelling classes on Tuesday for a campus discussion on national problems, but he refused to do so.

The administration also banned two out of three speakers scheduled to speak at a rally sponsored by the Athens Peace Committee (APC), which was to be held at the Grover Center on Monday night.

After the APC held a mass rally at the Grover Center, a group of about seventy-five students forced their way into the Chubb Library, occupied it, and issued a list of demands.

They demanded he to act upon seven of their proposals, which called for new classes on “the military industrial complex” and other topics, within twenty-four hours or the students threatened to “close the University down physically since it is already closed down academically.” More than 100 student and faculty marshals were placed around the university with the specific instructions to watch for “suspicious characters and happenings.” Athens police banned the use of gasoline in containers in order to stop acts of arson.

[21] In the early morning of May 15, President Sowle, following a second night of violence, announced the closing of Ohio University for the remainder of the term and requested the National Guard be sent to Athens.

Discussions about the Vietnam War and issues with military recruitment on Wesleyan's campus had been pervasive for two years, but organized protests began a few days after President Nixon's announcement of the Cambodian campaign.

The protests shut down the school's classes and schoolwork for the rest of the spring semester, and students were expected to finish their work later in the summer.

Marching students halted traffic on highways 250 and 29, and during the worst of the strike, Mayflower moving vans were used as temporary holding cells for arrested protesters.

On May 6, students, locals, and people who traveled from across Virginia gathered for a day of rallies at UVA, where state protests were now centered.

Student reporting at the time argued that a new Alumni Association was being founded directly in response to strike supporters' activities in an effort to ensure that conservative donors continued to give to the university.

[32][33] The protests and strikes had a dramatic impact, and convinced many Americans, particularly within the administration of President Richard Nixon, that the nation was on the verge of insurrection.

The mobs were smashing windows, slashing tires, dragging parked cars into intersections, even throwing bedsprings off overpasses into the traffic down below.

"[7] Not only was Nixon taken to Camp David for two days for his own protection, but Charles Colson (Counsel to President Nixon from 1969 to 1973) stated that the military was called up to protect the administration from the angry students, he recalled that "The 82nd Airborne was in the basement of the executive office building, so I went down just to talk to some of the guys and walk among them, and they're lying on the floor leaning on their packs and their helmets and their cartridge belts and their rifles cocked and you’re thinking, 'This can't be the United States of America.

As historian Stanley Karnow reported in his book Vietnam: A History, on May 9, 1970 the President appeared at 4:15 a.m. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to discuss the war with 30 student dissidents who were conducting a vigil there.

Nixon had been trailed by White House Deputy for Domestic Affairs Egil Krogh, who saw it differently than Karnow, saying, "I thought it was a very significant and major effort to reach out.

"[7] In the end, neither side could convince the other, and after meeting with the students Nixon expressed his view that those in the anti-war movement were the pawns of foreign communists.

[7] After the student protests, Nixon asked H. R. Haldeman to consider the Huston Plan, which would have used illegal procedures to gather information on the leaders of the anti-war movement.

In contrast to the noisy student protests, Administration supporters viewed themselves as "the Silent Majority" (a phrase coined by Nixon speechwriter Patrick Buchanan).

In one instance, in New York City on May 8, construction workers attacked student protesters in what came to be called the Hard Hat Riot.