The debate moved well beyond the campus in the fall of 1975, when, in a lengthy interview in the New York Times Magazine, former Vice President Spiro Agnew mentioned the station by name in an across-the-board condemnation of radical leftism. "There is little will to oppose Communism in America anymore," Agnew lamented. "The voice of third-world communism is pervasive in academia. WGTB...in Washington, broadcasts what seems to be propaganda for the third world and all but rejoiced over the fall of South Vietnam."

The staff celebrated the mention, while Sleeman, silently, was terrified. The immediate post-Watergate era still cast a shadow of fear over the leftist community. Conspiracy theories continued to loom large. "Like I gave a fuck about Spiro Agnew," recalls Pietrafesa. "I rejoiced in the article."

University officials, though, were shocked. "We felt as if we were sitting on a powder keg," says Parish. "There was no telling what the station might do next."

Shortly after the Agnew article, Sleeman notified the university, in accordance with the rules set forth by the review board, that the station would air public service announcements for the Georgetown Free Clinic—which provided, along with free services such as physical exams, an abortion referral service. The station was already running PSAs for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, farm-worker collectives, and anti-war groups. But the Free Clinic spot badly rankled the review board.

Sleeman received a letter from a university administrator advising that the station not run the advertisements. The clinic's activities, the letter stated, "run contrary to the stated goals and purposes of the university...given the fact that Georgetown is a Jesuit and Catholic University."

Parish remembers the incident well: "The university saw the running of that PSA as open subordination. It was an intolerable act."

Sleeman took his case to the press, demanding the right to broadcast the PSAs in the name of free speech. Within days, he received notice from Parish that he was fired. Sleeman ran the letter into the studio, where it was read aloud. The staff was stunned. It was only the beginning of what would become a nasty and protracted public dispute for Sleeman and some of his staffers—political, generational, and philosophical.

For four years, the station had been Sleeman's lifeblood. But now he faced the reality of giving up the job that made his existence fulfilling.

Station staffers protested the firing loudly, both over WGTB's airwaves and on the local news. They invited university officials to appear on the call-in program Open Forum to discuss their side of the situation. Parish became a regular guest. "It was a very hostile environment," she says. "The listeners were on the other side of this philosophical issue."

Parish also became the subject of angry letters and the target of anonymous threats. "There were days when Security was outside my office," she says.

After firing Sleeman, Parish assumed interim control of the station, eliminating the student directors and enforcing the heretofore ignored policy on objectionable content. No more "Working Class Hero," no more "Billy the Mountain." Gone too, were Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers" and Bob Dylan's "Hurricane."

The university feared fines and embarrassment as a result of the more risqué material WGTB was broadcasting. If Georgetown was to retain its broadcast license, Parish argued, there must be a radical reorganization, perhaps even a shutdown. Her man inside the station was a young, right-wing engineer called Frank Tolan (now deceased). "'Don't let my ponytail fool you,'" she recalls his telling her during their first meeting.

"I was getting information from Frank that things were escalating," Parish recalls. For five weeks, Parish's review board planned a shutdown—one that would happen swiftly and efficiently, before any radio staffer could respond. The impetus for the shutdown occurred in early March of 1976, when DJ Selvin aired a portion of a recent public reading by author William Burroughs. The passages contained many of the banned four-letter words.

On the morning of March 16, 1976, Parish walked into the station with two other university officials, ostensibly to appear on Open Forum, with Doherty and station administrator Geri Pizzi (née Calkins) as hosts. Just as the show began, one of the university officials asked to read a statement on the air. He first outlined the recent problems at the station—the political disputes, the objectionable content, and the FCC complaints. He next announced the shutdown of the station, effective immediately. A more "professional" station would re-open, he said, within a few months. WGTB's transmission, in a matter of seconds, transformed into a static buzz.

Black-uniformed campus security stormed the station, quickly escorted the students out, and safely returned the administrators to their offices. Pizzi and Doherty were stunned. "Jude and I started writing a response frantically. The phones were ringing off the hooks, but there was nothing we could do," says Pizzi (who met husband Skip at the station). "It was a commando raid."

"It was tragic and dramatic, and we were trying to pick up phones as they lit up the switchboard," recalls Doherty.

Sleeman heard the broadcast from his home, only a few blocks from the university. He rushed over to the station and found staffers outside, in tears. The station was boarded up within hours.

The exiled staff immediately formed an organization to fight the shutdown. The Committee to Save Alternative Radio (CSAR) opened an office on O Street NW and began to solicit the advice of civil liberties organizations. By the end of the month, CSAR had organized a mass rally at Georgetown, demanding that the university reinstate the WGTB staff or be stripped of its FM license.

Sleeman and others—dressed as priests wearing pig masks—led a procession toward the center of campus. They held a mock excommunication, with one former staffer in a pig mask, wearing black-rimmed glasses similar to those of Father Henle, presiding. A toilet bowl was used as an altar. One by one, station staffers were brought up on a platform, gagged, and ceremoniously thrown offstage. It was a stunt that only hardened the resolve of the university. Georgetown, after all, had the upper hand.