The Campus Demonstration records include materials regarding several unrelated campus conflicts, protests, demonstrations, and movements that were part of larger national or international demonstrations. A large portion of the materials relate to race relations on campus, specifically the Black student movement, which was part of the larger national Civil Rights movement. The campus conflicts dated from approximately 1968 to 1970, which was the height of the Black power movement in the greater United States, and like many Civil Rights protesters, the Eastern Michigan University demonstrators participated in non-violent civil resistance on campus. Also from this era are records pertaining to the conflict in Vietnam; as was the case on many college campuses across the country, students and faculty at Eastern Michigan University participated in protests, rallies, and demonstrations denouncing the United States military, war and violence, and the draft.

Later conflicts and demonstrations, dated 1980 to 2009, include campus-specific movements, such as rallies condemning instances of violence and supporting minority groups. There is also material regarding higher education in the state of Michigan, such as protests against proposed budget cuts to public colleges and universities.