It was a time when students set up tents on the Old Main lawn to protest on-campus housing shortages.

Others spoke out against how women could not live in off-campus apartments.

And the burning of draft cards was a common sight.

For some, participating in the free speech movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s is just as important as having a political voice now.

That is why Gary Potter, an activist and Penn State student during that time, said he is casting his ballot for Sen. John Kerry in this year's presidential election.

"Bush has the idea that American power can be used to dominate the world and that's a scary thing," said Potter, then a member of the Penn State chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), one of the most visible activist groups on campus.

Potter, who is now a criminal justice professor at Eastern Kentucky University, said he thinks President George W. Bush's foreign policy is strikingly similar to former president Richard Nixon's during the Vietnam War, when the U.S. government believed its power was infinite.

Bush, he said, is "dangerously right-wing," and Potter said he sees a frightening resemblance between the domestic policies of Bush and Nixon.

As a member of SDS and a strong believer in the free speech movement, Potter participated in many demonstrations to speak out against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and the university's administrative policies.

SDS gained the support of about 200 activists by the late 1960s, Potter said. By the time the U.S. invaded Cambodia in 1970, he said the group saw nearly 5,000 people show up to its anti-war protests and rallies.

Many students involved with the free speech movement were especially disturbed with Penn State's link to defense research at that time, said Lee Stout, a university archivist.

The U.S. Navy had been funding undersea warfare research at the Ordinance Research Lab since the end of World War II, Stout said, but it was not until the free speech era when students showed vocal opposition.

"There was no attempt to hide [the research] and many students felt that Penn State was funding the [Vietnam] War," Stout said.

One of the first organized events was a sit-in that took place in Old Main in 1969. Potter joined a group of 400 other student activists to protest administrative policies, he said.

Penn State students hoped to follow the notion that many other students across the country had taken: To occupy a building until their demands were met.

Students wanted former Penn State President Eric Walker to meet demands such as letting women live off campus, halting defense research and preventing students from receiving credit for ROTC.

Potter said the action was a statement of students against authority that thankfully came to an anti-climactic end.

"Everyone just kind of laughed it off when it was over," he said.

Especially in light of the current political climate, he said it is important for Penn State students to realize that their rights are not the same as they used to be.

"It was an entirely different attitude toward student freedom and politics," Potter said.