Riot, you'll like it." It's September, 1972. Richard Nixon is walloping George McGovern in the polls, the Iowa Hawkeyes are looking forward to another losing season, and Student Senate president Sam Arnold has been arrested for murdering a cantankerous old German-American with a British cavalry sword. Judith Vaughan, Student Senate vice president and Sam's ex-lover, doesn't want to sacrifice her studies for student politics, even though her resignation would give a rabble-rouser the acting presidency. It seems the whole university is trying to keep her in office. In desperation the Dean of Students sends her high school sweetheart, back in school after a stint in the Army, to change her mind. So begins her quest to prevent a riot, find out who really killed Hermann Mueller, and decide whether to rekindle her old flame. That is, if somebody doesn't kill her first.