Steve Conliff 's decision to throw a pie at Governor Rhodes was due to Rhodes ' direct role in the Kent State shootings ; particularly 1 ) the ordering of Ohio National Guard troops onto campus , and 2 ) his angry speech given the day before the shootings ( May 3 , 1970 ) to assembled news media . Rhodes ' infamous speech was said to inflame conservatives as well as the guardsmen occupying campus , thereby lighting the fuse of an already-incendiary situation : We have seen here at the City of Kent especially , probably the most vicious form of campus-oriented violence yet perpetrated by dissident groups and their allies in the State of Ohio ... these people just move from one campus to the other and terrorize a community . They 're worse than the Brown Shirts and the communist element and also the Night Riders and the vigilantes . They 're the worst type of people that we harbor in America . And I want to say that they 're not going to take over the campus . And the campus now is going to be part of the County and the State of Ohio.In 1977 , the Kent State University Administration decided to build a gymnasium on the exact site of the Kent State shootings , where there was already a small but respectful memorial to the four slain students erected by B'nai B'rith . As a result , all hell broke loose ; there were numerous demonstrations and an infamous " Tent City " erected on the site that eventually had to be bulldozed down , its 193 inhabitants forcibly removed and arrested . It was in this carnival atmosphere that the pieing of Governor James Rhodes took place
Kent State shootings
Kent State shootings
Steve Conliff