The 25 Biggest College Campus Riots of All Time

Your uncle wasn't lying when he said one of the greatest joys of his college years involved banding together with friends to hurl rocks at the authorities. And maybe burn a couch or two.

Make no mistake, campus riots have been a phenomenon for pretty much as long as colleges have existed. Don't believe us? Consider this: Student protests at the University of Paris in 1229 led to the school's closing for more than two years. Of course, riot gear and tear gas have entered the picture in more recent centuries, ensuring that an episode of that magnitude never occurs again.

Nonetheless, the trend of student unrest has persisted well into the new millennium, wreaking havoc on the American university system in a number of infamous ways.

Whether over tough sports losses, in support of a political causes, or just because 10,000 students felt like tearing shit up one day (read: frustrated Penn State students), these are the 25 Biggest College Campus Riots of All Time.

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25. Tennessee Students Riot Upon Coach's Departure

College: University of Tennessee
City: Knoxville, TN
Date: 1/12/2010
Number of People Involved: A few dozen

The fact that some referred to this ordeal as a "half-ass riot" doesn't change the fact that serious damage was inflicted. The night that University of Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin announced he was departing the Vols for a job at USC, dozens of students vandalized campus landmarks, defiled school memorabilia and—you guessed it—burned a bunch of shit in protest. The famed UT rock was spray-painted with a thoughtful message: "Fuck you Lane Kiffin," along with something vaguely resembling "you suck cock." No one knows for sure.

24. Purdue Students Take a Loss Too Hard

College: Purdue University
City: West Lafayette, IN
Date: 4/1/2001
Number of People Involved: ~100

Students at Purdue University took a defeat in the NCAA women's basketball championship game a little too seriously one night in 2001, breaking into full riot mode after a heartbreaking two-point loss to Notre Dame.

The affair that started with a single firecracker erupted in mere minutes into dumpster and couch fires, and a number of minor scuffles with police officers. Around a hundred students participated in the riot, and several angry fans and local authorities exchanged blows before "about 70 people went out there with a burning couch and then the dumpster." A little too much fan dedication, Boilermakers.

23. Jackson Police Open Fire on Protesters

College: Jackson State College
City: Jackson, MS
Date: 5/15/1970
Number of People Involved: ~100

Most Americans have heard of the Kent State shooting, but few nowadays are aware of what took place 11 days later in Mississippi. During the heat of a Vietnam War protest staged by students at Jackson State College (now University), city and state police confronted the group of a hundred or so African-Americans in the middle of the night. The students held the event in objection to the invasion of Cambodia, and were said to be growing increasingly rowdy, lighting fires and making noise, prompting 75 local police units to be dispatched. Around 12:05 a.m., reports say, police began shooting into the crowd, killing 2 students and leaving 12 injured. Many more sustained minor injuries from broken glass in the incident, wherein 30 seconds of gunfire and 140 shotgun rounds left every window along one city street shattered.

22. Wisconsin Students Protest Napalm Manufacturer's Visit

College: University of Wisconsin
City: Madison, WI
Date: 10/18/1967
Number of People Involved: ~300

A few hundred University of Wisconsin students gathered on campus to protest visits by recruiters of Dow Chemical, makers of napalm, in the fall of 1967—the heat of the Vietnam War. When students blocked access to the school's Commerce Building, Madison police began to remove them by force. Tear gas and night-sticks were the primary dispersal weapons that day, and dozens of students and emergency officials left the scene bloodied-up. Somehow, it all took place in the name of non-violence.

21. UW students Set Seattle ablaze

College: University of Washington
City: Seattle, WA
Date: 9/28/2003
Number Of People Involved: ~400

Drunken students gathered on Seattle streets in September 2003, setting mattresses ablaze, overturning cars, and destroying windshields on the final weekend before classes were set to begin. It's as if the students looked up the definition of riot in the dictionary and then illustrated it word for word on city streets. Police in riot gear were dispatched the break up the melee, in which beer bottles were smashed upon heads and bonfire embers soared high into the air. Despite all the commotion, only one arrest was made.

20. Ole Miss Students Protest Obama's Re-election

College: University of Mississippi
City: Oxford, MS
Date: 11/7/2012
Number of People Involved: ~400

We're getting the sense here that Ole Miss has something of a race problem. Hours after Barack Obama was re-elected to the presidency, nearly 400 students from the University of Mississippi took to the streets to express their displeasure openly by lighting shit on fire and shouting racial slurs. Photos posted on Twitter showed people setting Obama campaign signs on fire, and some students were heard hurling racial epithets about Obama and black Americans in general throughout the ordeal.

19. U of O Turns Into a War Zone

College: University of Oregon
City: Eugene, OR
Date: 9/24/2010
Number of People Involved: ~400

Violence broke out near the University of Oregon one Friday in September 2010 after police attempted to bust 400 college-age party-goers who were trashing local streets. Shattered glass and beer bottles littered an intersection blocks away from the University of Orgeon's campus after a melee spilled onto the road. An officer on "party patrol" reportedly encountered the massive, alcohol-induced rager and only exacerbated it by attempting to take action—students reportedly began breaking car windows and pulling down street signs after authorities were called in, with some actually bare-knuckle boxing each other. The rowdy group hurled eggs and bottles at officers, and multiple cans of tear gas had to be deployed to quell the rioting from the Friday night party gone bad.

18. Drinking Ban Leads to Rage

College: Washington State University
City: Pullman, WA
Date: 5/3/1998
Number of People Involved: ~500

An on-campus drinking ban led hundreds of people—mostly Washington State University students—to revolt one morning in 1998. Police busting a late-night kegger were apparently pelted with rocks and beer cans upon their arrival, and called for backup just after midnight. As authorities arrived on the scene, party-goers began pelting them with garbage and construction materials, and a crowd of 200 active participants swelled to around 500, as observers made their way into the mix. Portable toilets were flipped over in the streets and small fires broke out as teams of officers attempted to disperse the crowd. Injured in the melee: 23 police officers and as many as a dozen others. Fun-busting university officials: Is this what you wanted?

17. St. Patty's Day Parade Becomes Violent

College: University of Albany
City: Albany, NY
Date: 3/12/2011
Number of People Involved: Hundreds

Observing the tradition of Keggs & Eggs, a day-drinking ritual preceding the Albany St. Patrick's Day Parade, a few hundred students from the University of Albany got plastered the morning of March 12, 2011, and wreaked havoc upon local streets. Culprits broke car windows, threw furniture from second floor porches onto vehicles parked in the street, and hurled beer bottles at police officers. Students apparently pushed one car into the road after first jumping on its roof and kicking its doors in, leading to thousands of dollars in damage. More than 40 were arrested between the parade and pre-parade riot.

16. Maryland Students Burn the Trees

College: University of Maryland
City: College Park, MD
Date: 3/3/2010
Number of People Involved: ~1,000

No stranger to student riots, the University of Maryland got a little too rowdy one Wednesday night in 2010 after the Terrapins defeated fourth-ranked Duke in college basketball. Around 1,500 poured onto a main road near the school's campus following the 7-point win; television footage captured mounted officers dispersing the crowd in riot gear after some students reportedly threw snowballs and ice at police. Arrests totaled 28 that night, and resulted mostly from destruction of property and petty arson: people setting trees and trash cans ablaze for no reason whatsoever.

15. Columbia Students Protest Recreation Center

College: Columbia University
City: New York, NY
Date: 4/23/1968
Number of People Involved: ~1,000

Protests broke out at Columbia University in April 1968, after university officials announced plans to construct a gym in Morningside Park that would give only limited access to residents of nearby Harlem, no doubt, on racial grounds. Students were also aggravated at the time by the university's continued ties to research for the Vietnam war.

On the April 23, large crowds of students began to occupy campus buildings in a demonstration that lasted nearly a week. NYPD officers violently quashed the movement using tear gas. Around 150 students were injured, and more than 700 were arrested, but the recreation center was never built.

14. Power Outage Leads to Melee in Seattle

College: University of Washington
City: Seattle, WA
Date: 4/6/2010
Number of People Involved: ~1,000

A 2010 power failure in a neighborhood near the University of Washington led more than 1,000 students to riot, chanting "Go Huskies" and setting furniture ablaze. The ordeal lasted for over two hours, continuing even after power was restored. The crowd refused initial orders to disperse, demanding more couches and more fires. One man reportedly stripped naked and ran through the streets high-fiving people, unsure of what else to do when Wii Fit turned off abruptly.

13. Penn State Fans Freak Out Over Paterno's Dismissal

College: Penn State University
City: State College, PA
Date: 11/9/2011
Number of People Involved: ~1,000

Following the dismissal of football coach Joe Paterno, the fallout from a sordid child-abuse scandal no one will forget, more than 1,000 Penn State students descended on local streets to protest in late 2011. Chanting things like "Hell no, Joe Won't go" and "We want Joe back," in addition to cursing the child-molesting assistant coach charged with abusing a group of boys over a 15 year period, crowd members filled two city blocks and turned over a media van before local and state officials could disperse the mob. Police likely have the weather to thank for this incident not erupting into a massive street riot—the crowd reportedly thinned out significantly when it began to rain.

12. The First Black Student at Alabama

College: University of Alabama
City: Tuscaloosa, AL
Date: 2/3/1956
Number of People Involved: ~1,500

When a black student, Autherine Lucy, was allowed by court order to attend the University of Alabama in 1956, she wasn't met kindly by the student body. Lucy was suspended for three days "for her own safety" after a mob broke out as she attended her first classes. Shouts of "Keep 'Bama white" and "To hell with Autherine" were heard during midnight protests; nearly 1,500 turned out for the cross-burning ritual. Really. Despite all the ruckus, Lucy said many of her fellow students inside were friendly, welcoming her to classes and wishing her well along her journey—as everyone should have been.

11. Occupation of Sproul Hall

College: University of California, Berkeley
City: Berkeley, CA
Date: 12/2/1964
Number of People Involved: ~1,500

The largest demonstration ever organized by the Free Speech Movement took place on UC-Berkeley's campus in December, 1964. Students protesting the school's expulsion of those involved in the movement, and in student activism in general, responded by occupying the hall en masse one day. In all, 1,500 camped out in the building before being removed by police. Over 750 student activists were eventually arrested, and the university had its hands tied, with no way to expel a significant, tuition-paying portion of its student body without destroying the school's budget.

10. Berkeley Riots Inspire Later Movements

College: University of California, Berkeley
City: Berkeley, CA
Date: Late 1960s
Number Of People Involved: Thousands

Some say the Berkeley Riots of the 1960s paved the way for the more famous campus protests that ensued. Spurred by the free speech, civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, the riots encompassed a number of student activist protests. Events like "Stop the Draft Week" and the Vietnam Day March fall under the umbrella. In one incident, the Sheraton Palace Demonstration, nearly 4,000 occupied a hotel that engaged in racially discriminatory hiring practices, demanding that black individuals have access to executive positions. Strength in numbers, indeed.

9. National Guard Members Kill War Protesters at Kent State

College: Kent State University
City: Kent, OH
Date: 5/4/1970
Number of People Involved: ~2,000

In what may go down as the most infamous riot response in history, members of the National Guard fired 67 rounds at a northern Ohio crowd protesting the invasion of Cambodia in April 1970. Following President Nixon's announcement of the operation to invade, students on the Kent State campus poured into the streets in opposition, prompting city officials to declare a state of emergency. Days passed during which small fires were set, window fronts were destroyed, and an ROTC building on campus was set ablaze. On May 4, members of the Ohio National Guard ditched the tear gas and bayonets for guns and bullets. Four protesters were killed, and nine were injured.

8. Celebration Goes Awry at Iowa State

College: Iowa State University
City: Ames, Iowa
Date: 4/18/2004
Number of People Involved: ~2,000

Students at Iowa State University did a modest four-bedroom house's worth of damage to their beloved (or maybe not so much?) campus in the early morning hours of April 18, 2004, during an annual week long celebration held in Ames each spring. Police armed with pepper spray and tear gas faced off against a pack of 2,000 rabid Iowans that spilled out into the street shortly after officers attempted to break up a 400-person party deemed unruly. That plan backfired.

Parking meters and street signs were destroyed, and 38 suffered injuries, while 37 emerged handcuffed in the hostile affair that lasted nearly until dawn. In all, the damage inflicted by this pack totaled $250,000, a figure displayed by broken storefronts, uprooted lamp posts, and defiled street signs across town. The celebration was canceled the next year.

7. Ole Miss Students Protest James Meredith's Enrollment

College: University of Mississippi
City: Oxford, MS
Date: 10/1/1962
Number of People Involved: ~2,500

Students at the University of Mississippi went to excessive lengths to prevent a black student from enrolling at the their school in 1962. And they weren't the only ones—the governor at the time denied federal orders to admit James Meredith to the school, as he wanted to keep the school segregated. Meredith was allowed to enroll nonetheless and a team of 6,000 law-enforcement officials (including members of the American military) was dispatched to control the ensuing riots. Two were killed, and a few hundred were injured and arrested.

6. College Fest Turns Violent

College: Kent State University
City: Kent, OH
Date: 4/21/2012
Number of People Involved: ~3,000

Sometimes, the students at Kent State in northern Ohio riot for a worthy cause—to oppose the 1970 U.S. invasion of Cambodia, for example. Other times, they've rioted for no apparent reason whatsoever. Students at College Fest, an annual block party Kent State students hold near the end of the school year, got a little out of hand last year, prompting police and emergency medical response. Thirty-three were eventually arrested after the crowd of hundreds grew unruly, with some throwing bricks and bottles at officers and each other. A SWAT team was eventually dispatched to get the crowd under control. Tear gas and flash-bang devices curbed the senseless violence.

5. Maryland Riots After Loss to Duke

College: University of Maryland
City: College Park, MD
Date: 3/31/2001
Number of People Involved: ~5,000

Students at the University of Maryland—a repeat offender on the list—caused nearly $500,000 in damage between March 31 and April 1, 2001, after a bonfire set by fans got out of hand. The riots took place after the Terps blew a 22-point lead in the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four, losing to Duke. Rowdy fans smashed storefronts, attacked police, and set a mobile home ablaze.

4. Ohio State Fans Rush Streets Following Championship Berth

College: Ohio State University
City: Columbus, OH
Date: 11/23/2003
Number of People Involved: ~5,000

After Ohio State defeated arch-rival Michigan in football on November 23, 2003, earning the Buckeyes a berth to the National Championship, students responded to the victory by quietly returning to their homes and watching the highlights on SportsCenter. Or that's what police would have wanted. In actuality, fans celebrated the 14-9 win first by rushing the field, then pouring into the streets. Windshields were smashed, cars were rolled over, and fires were started many a corner. The night in Columbus was especially tragic for local couches, many of which were reduced to ash. In all, a crowd of 5,000 started 107 fires and destroyed 20 cars, leading to 70 arrests.

3. Pandemonium in Maryland for the NCAA Championship

College: University of Maryland
City: College Park, MD
Date: 4/1/2002
Number of People Involved: ~5,000

Talk about excessive celebration. On April Fool's Day, 2002, University of Maryland students broke into senseless pandemonium following a defeat of Indiana in the NCAA men's basketball championship. Nearly 5,000 took to the streets to celebrate the school's first title, no doubt consuming copious amounts of alcohol in the process and engaging in generally destructive behavior throughout the night. We're talking smashing beer bottles upside each other's heads and then eating the ensuing shards of glass as a show of solidarity, or at least something equally insane. Flames broke out, trash cans were set ablaze and emergency vehicles were dealt thousands of dollars' worth of damage. More than a dozen were arrested in the multiple-day affair, which erupted in the same week as a costly fracas following the Terrapins' advancing to the national championship in the first place. Maryland, this -- this -- is why you can't have nice things.

2. Michigan State Fans Mob After Loss

College: Michigan State University
City: East Lansing, MI
Date: 3/27/1999
Number of People Involved: Between 5,000-10,000

Between 5,000 and 10,000 disappointed fans unleashed their frustration upon the streets of East Lansing following Sparty's loss to Duke in the 1999 NCAA Final Four. The mob set fire to anything in its path, including couches and cars. In all, 132 were arrested—including 71 students—following the affair, and assessments of damage were as high as $500,000. Reports circulated that a Taco Bell window was smashed, but no worries: The culprit was able to prepare himself a taco before the large-scale looting of the business took place. Cinnamon twists, anyone?

1. Kentucky Students Flood Lexington Streets to Celebrate

College: University of Kentucky
City: Lexington, KY
Date: 3/31/2012
Number of People Involved: ~10,000

Chaos erupted in the streets of Lexington the night the Wildcats beat in-state rival Louisville in the Final Four to advance to the NCAA Men's basketball championship. Thousands of rowdy fans swarmed the streets surrounding campus following the win, leading officers in riot gear to move in as student set couches and cars ablaze, hurling beers cans into large crowds. Reports of cars being flipped were abundant, and around 50 nuisance fires were reported. Approximately 10 arrests were made, and officers used pepper spray to disperse the crowd.