How much compensation did plaintiffs receive in the 1979 Kent State settlement and who paid it?
Executive summary
An out‑of‑court settlement in January 1979 paid $675,000 to the injured students and the families of the four students killed at Kent State on May 4, 1970; the money was paid by the State of Ohio (largest single award was $350,000 to Dean Kahler; slain students’ families received $15,000 each) [1] [2] [3].
1. The headline number: $675,000 and how it was split
The consolidated civil suits ended with a single monetary figure: $675,000 was approved by Ohio’s State Controlling Board as the out‑of‑court settlement to be distributed among the plaintiffs — nine wounded students and the parents of the four slain students — with itemized awards that included $350,000 to Dean Kahler (paralyzed) and $15,000 apiece to the families of the four killed students; other wounded plaintiffs received amounts ranging roughly from $15,000 to $42,500 [1] [2] [4].
2. Who wrote the check: State of Ohio, not individual Guardsmen
Multiple institutional histories and university material state explicitly that the payment came from the State of Ohio rather than from individual National Guardsmen; the settlement documents and contemporary reporting characterize the payment as a state action approved by the State Controlling Board [3] [5] [6].
3. The apology/statement piece that mattered as much as money
The settlement included a signed statement of regret — described by plaintiffs’ counsel as effectively an apology and by some state officials as an expression of sorrow — signed by Governor James A. Rhodes, Ohio National Guard leaders and others; plaintiffs sought that language as part of non‑monetary redress [6] [7] [5].
4. Why Ohio paid: practical, legal and political signals
Reports from the time and later summaries frame the payment as a pragmatic end to protracted litigation and a way to move Kent State past the dispute; state attorneys argued the settlement equaled what continued litigation would cost and would spare further damage to the university’s reputation [6] [3]. The Yale/ACLU archival note likewise records plaintiffs’ language that the State, though technically protected by sovereign immunity, “recognized its responsibility by paying” damages [8].
5. Competing narratives in sources about responsibility and meaning
Contemporary coverage and later historians present two competing perspectives: plaintiffs and their lawyers read the settlement statement as an apology and moral recognition of responsibility, while some state and National Guard officials insisted the language fell short of an admission of legal fault, framing it as regret or condolence rather than culpability [6] [7]. Available sources do not mention any criminal convictions tied to that civil settlement; they instead treat the settlement as the final phase of civil litigation [6] [5].
6. The settlement’s scale judged against expectations then and now
Observers at the time and later commentators remarked that $675,000 was modest relative to the harms: the largest award, $350,000, went to the paralysed student, but families of the slain received sums many readers today view as small — $15,000 each — a fact noted repeatedly in press accounts and retrospective appraisals [4] [2] [9].
7. Limitations of the public record and what’s not in these sources
The provided sources establish the settlement amount, who paid it (State of Ohio), the allocation highlights, and the accompanying statement of regret, but they do not detail every plaintiff’s exact award beyond the named examples, nor do they provide full text of the settlement agreement in these snippets; for the complete distribution table or the signed settlement text researchers should consult the Kent State archives or the original court documents referenced in university special collections [5] [8].
8. Why this settlement still matters
The 1979 settlement closed one major legal chapter of a nationally resonant tragedy while leaving contested public judgments about responsibility and accountability. The State’s payment and the carefully worded regret statement functioned as both material compensation and a negotiated public statement — accepted by plaintiffs as relief but resisted by some officials as an admission — illustrating how settlements resolve litigation without producing unanimous agreement on historical truth [6] [3].
Sources cited: contemporary press and institutional records as compiled above [1] [2] [6] [5] [7] [4] [3] [8].