In the middle of the night on November 16, 1989, during the civil war in El Salvador, 6 Jesuit priests  +  their housekeeper and her daughter were murdered at the University of Central America by a hit-squad of the Salvadoran Army. More than half of those implicated in the killings were trained in the United States at the School of the Americas (SOA), located at Fort Benning, GA.  Every year on the anniversary of the murders, thousands of protesters converge at the gates of Fort Benning to remember all the victims  of those who had been trained at the SOA, and to demand the closing of the school.

In 2004, faculty, students and staff from Fairfield University traveled to Georgia to take part in the protest and to participate in a Jesuit-sponsored teach-in.