Know Your Surroundings: History of Self Defense at OSU
This exhibit’s purpose is to highlight how self-defense has been invoked by The Ohio State University and affiliated institutions, students, and activists in the context of gender-based violence and sexual violence. I utilized archived material from The Lantern and OSU archives and created metadata for them to be displayed in this exhibit.
The first mention of “self-defense” in The Lantern was in the 1920s. The article was highlighting the benefit of boxing – “the manly art of self defense.” College debate was also dubbed "the new manly art of self-defense." Self-defense was also a hot topic throughout the reporting of the 1929 Snook murder case where Dr. James H. Snook was charged with murdering one of his students - Theora K. Hix. Snook legal defense relied on “insanity at the time of the killing, use of drugs, and self-defense.” However, the reporting on self-defense would only really increase in the 1960s when martial arts became more popular.
In the 1960s we see an increase in martial arts schools promoting self-defense. The first martial arts school to advertise self-defense was the Shorin-Ryn School of Self Defense in 1962. Soon after, martial art practitioners began teaching OSU students. In 1965, Dr. Wu – an OSU faculty member – taught students “Chinese yoga and the self-defense and exercising techniques of Tai Chi Chuan.” The Martial arts advertisements were not explicitly gendered like boxing was. The first policewoman at a Big Ten School – Norma Walker – was trained in self-defense and judo as part of her police training with Columbus Police Training Academy.
Discussions of self-defense aimed at women are documented to have begun after Walker joined the Ohio State Police force. She shared “her knowledge of self defense measures, learned while with the Columbus police, with Ohio State coeds, speaking to groups of girls at dormitories and sorority houses.” Walker did self defense workshops for student organizations such as the Women’s Self Government Association (WSGA). After three women were raped in 1968, one being an OSU student, The Columbus Police Department (CPD) were prompted to disseminate emergency phone numbers and strategies on avoiding molesters. The advice CPD provided can be found in their pamphlet “Fingertip Facts for Women Alone.” CPD recommended screaming/yelling, using hairspray as a form of civilian mace, and closing blinds.
It is around this same time that students began advocating for increased safety measures such as lighting, buses, and police patrols. In 1970, the WGSA advised women to not walk alone at night and to use the escort service. Students also began organizing themselves as a way to provide for their own safety. The United Students Organization (USO) established a volunteer student security force. Self-defense wasn’t just invoked more in the 60s and 70s due to a general concern for safety, it was also invoked due to concerns specifically around women being raped.
One such example of this is that in 1970 the Women Liberation Front (WLM) demanded that OSU offer a self-defense course for women students. In 1983, Marty Schmidt, a graduate administrative associate for OSU’s Rape Education Prevention Program, said that “college women can avoid date rape situations if they know self defense.” Due to the assumptions surrounding who is raped in the 1960s and the growing anti-rape movement at OSU in the 70s and 80s, self-defense was now often explicitly tied to women and their need to defend themselves against would-be rapists and molesters.
Women’s organizations and the university would continue to host self-defense workshops for women students. The 1972 Women’s Week (April 3rd – 8th) was sponsored by the Women’s Self-Government Association with cooperation from Chimes, Columbus-OSU Women’s Liberation, International Students Association, Off Campus Students Association, Planned Parenthood, Radical Lesbians, Siebert Hall, Undergraduate Student Government, Women’s Action Collective. One event for Women's Week 1972 was a self-defense demonstration by Columbus Policewoman Jeanie Bray. Self-defense workshops and events would continue to be a mainstay in future programming for women students hosted by both student organizations and OSU departments like Women’s Services. Self-defense workshops would be taught by varying professions including but not limited to police officers and martial artists.
By 1978, OSU had been offering self-defense classes exclusively to women; however, OSU rolled out a new class - Physical Education 172 – which was a self-defense class for both men and women. OSU would continue to expand its role in educating its students in self-defense. In 1983, OSU’s Office of Student Life provided rape prevention and self-defense workshops for student dorms and Greek Life. As of 2022, OSU still offers self-defense classes for students.
It is unclear what exact techniques or ideas were being taught in the early OSU self-defense courses; however, anti-rape activist groups such as WAR asserted that OSU’s self-defense classes and theirs were not the same because according to WAR, theirs were taught by a feminist perspective and OSU’s was not.
The Anti-rape activist group Women Against Rape (WAR) began offering self-defense classes in the early 1970s in addition to establishing Women’s Distress Shelters and a Rape Crisis Center near campus. They also published a pamphlet in 1977 titled “Fighting Back: A Self Defense Handbook” (which you can see in "Play it Safe": Safety Pamphlets section). WAR publicly defended and supported women who had been arrested for killing their rapists in self-defense like JoAnne Little (1975) and Linda Lee Walden (1985). The sentiments of WARs members continued into the 1990s and can be seen in the 1991 visit by author Cynthia K Gillespie to OSU to discuss her 1989 book Justifiable Homicide: Battered Women, Self-Defense, and the Law.
Anti-rape organizations like WAR also sponsored Take Back the Night (TBTN) Marches starting in the 70s through the present. The purposes of these marches are to fight against the narrative that women should not be out at night due to fear of rape or harassment. TBTN marches directly challenge the assumption that women needed escorts after dark and question why attention is focused on women’s behavior rather than rapists.
Anti-rape activists would continue to shape OSU policy by joining the administration and departments. Deborah Schipper is one such example. She is documented to have been a committee member for WAR's 1983 Take Back the Night March and in 1985 she was the Program Facilitator of the Rape Education and Prevention Program (REPP) and an OSU self-defense instructor. Schipper would also be the advisor to the Women's Self Defense & Martial Arts Club from 2000-2003. In 1988, REPP began promoting its free 5-week self-defense course the purpose of which was “to teach women how to protect themselves.” REPP also had a program for men - “Men-Can-Rape – Men-Can Stop Rape” – that taught men how to stop rapists on behalf of women rather than protect themselves from rapists.
After a murder occurred in 1994, women were advised to carry more weapons such as mace, tear gas, or a ‘Watch Cat’. Community Crime Patrol member Mark Hatch said that “Men and women alike ought not to walk alone.” Cynthia Zachary-Smith, director of Women Student Services, said that she “does not want to blame women who walk by themselves at night. . . If women do walk alone, they need to empower themselves.”
An article published in 1994 titled “Student gain chemical weapons know-how” quoted OSU Police Captain David Stelzer as saying that weapons such as mace have gained popularity over the past 10 years and are legal in Ohio. In 1995, OSU’s Advance Self Defense Class demonstrated to students how to use pepper spray. Other self-defense technology would emerge in the 2000s for consumers, such as 130-decibel safety alarms, tasers, and stun guns.
An article published in 1994 titled “Student gain chemical weapons know-how” quoted OSU Police Captain David Stelzer as saying that weapons such as mace have gained popularity over the past 10 years and are legal in Ohio. In 1995, OSU’s Advance Self Defense Class demonstrated to students how to use pepper spray. Other self-defense technology would emerge in the 2000s for consumers, such as 130-decibel safety alarms, tasers, and stun guns.
After 2003, there is a noticeable decline in articles about self-defense in The Lantern’s archive. Self-defense came back into the spotlight after the murder of Reagan Tokes in 2017 because free self-defense classes were being offered in her honor. In January 2021, the OSU Department of Public Safety launched a 10-part safety spotlight video series that covered “self-defense techniques and general safety resources.” The article details additional resources such as OSU’s partnership with Lyft to give students discounted rides after dark, the Rave Guardian app that allows students to share their location with others, and where students can pick up free home safety devices.