The board of trustees appointed Edward J. Boling president on December 19, 1969, during the winter holidays. When the students returned in January, the Student Government Association sent a request to Boling asking him to refuse the presidency and also voted to censure the trustees for his selection. Some students called for demonstrations. On January 15, 1970, police dispersed a demonstration on campus in which sixteen students and six nonstudents were arrested, and four policemen and one student were hurt. The events grew out of a relatively widespread belief by students and faculty that the appointment of Dr. Edward J. Boling as president of UT ignored their concerns and advice.
On January 14 a “challenge” to Boling for “hand-to-hand combat” (a duel) was issued by Peter Kami, a former student. The duel was to be part of a demonstration at the Austin Peay Administration Building on January 15. A core of approximately two hundred protestors was joined by a crowd of watchers that numbered over one thousand. The peaceful demonstration became a confrontation when one of the protestors called for entering the Administration Building. Campus police were called in to disperse the crowd, and twenty-two people, among them Peter Kami, were arrested. The SGA began a bail fund for the students arrested, but it was not needed. Dr. Ralph Bean, professor of mathematics, personally paid the $1,250 bondsman’s fee to gain release of the students. Funds were solicited from faculty and others to repay him. The indictment of the protestors sparked a peaceful protest outside the Administration Building and a second gathering outside Ayres Hall. Kami and Foy McDavid Jr. were barred from entering any campus building or UT facility without the express consent of then-Chancellor Charles Weaver on September 25, 1970.
An “Establishment Trial” was held in 1971 to commemorate the events of January 15, 1970. Judge of the mock trial, Jim Smith, told the audience of approximately 550 at the University Center Auditorium “only you know how you feel about the present situation on campus.” The board of trustees, Edward J. Boling, Chancellor Charles Weaver, Col. A. T. Whitehead of Safety and Security, and John Baugh, general counsel, were indicted in the mock trial.
The Student Senate mounted an effort to lift the 15-month-old injunction barring Kami in 1972; Chancellor Archie Dykes met with Kami in a private, off-campus meeting in January 1972 but declined to lift the ban.