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Brewster earned high marks for transforming Yale from an elitist institution for the conventional education of affluent prep school graduates into an innovative coeducational campus, where more than 50% of the students get financial aid—and he gets credit for doing it without lowering graduation standards in the process. Brewster has also long held views that Agnew could applaud, such as his concern that "physical disruption and intimidation from the New Left" pose a "frontal challenge" to universities, and that "reason must be honored above the clash of crude and noisy enthusiasms and antipathies." He has argued that "the teacher who holds no convictions is a neuter," but "the teacher who sees his classroom as an opportunity for missionary indoctrination is an outrage."
Assassination. In a rare unity forged by their support of Brewster, Yale's faculty and students worked together to examine the Panther issue without violence. Some 200 students fanned out into New Haven to try to convince townspeople that the Panther trial poses the threat of political repression. "We don't necessarily support the Panther ideology—we are concerned about Bobby Scale and his companions in jail in California getting a fair trial," explained a member of the strike committee. Professors deviated from their teaching plans to concentrate on the related issues. A psychology course examined the psychology of racism, seminars were held on such subjects as "The Law of Conspiracy," "Race and Class Conflict in Modern Society," "Language and Revolution." Signs were plastered everywhere urging KEEP THE PEACE and warning that VIOLENCE IS THE TOOL OF FASCISM. The residential colleges opened their courtyards for the bedding down of visitors. The university provided slim but sustaining meals of salad and rice for all comers.
In Washington, the probability of violence was stressed. High officials of the Justice Department, the Army, the FBI and the Secret Service held a strategy meeting, concluding that some 20,000 to 50,000 demonstrators would head for New Haven, including 2,000 violence-prone "militants." This led to a recommendation by Attorney General John Mitchell that federal troops be dispatched. After Connecticut Governor John Dempsey formally requested them, they were sent to Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts and Quonset Point Naval Air Station in Rhode Island to be ready. About 2,500 Connecticut National Guardsmen were ordered into New Haven.