This grassroots view of student activism in the 1960s chronicles the years of protest at one Midwestern American university. Located in a region of farmland, conservative politics and traditional family values, Indiana University was home to antiwar protestors, civil rights activists, members of the counterculture and feminists who helped change the heart of Middle America. Its students made their voices heard on issues from such local matters as tuition hikes, dorm curfews and self-governance to national issues of racism, sexism and the Vietnam War. Their recognition that the personal was the political would change them forever. The protest movement they helped shape would reach into the heartland in ways that would redefine higher education, politics and cultural values. Based on research in primary sources, interviews and FBI files, Dissent in the Heartland reveals the spirit of dissent alive in the Midwest in the Sixties, far from the headline-grabbing events at the universities and urban centres on the East and West coasts.