Northwestern students were divided — not united — in Washington, D.C., on Saturday as they witnessed the inauguration of President George W. Bush.

NU students either cheered alongside Republicans or marched with liberal demonstrators under a chilling rain and the watchful eyes of 7,000 law enforcement agents.

They slogged through the mud of the Mall, met senators on Capitol Hill and dodged pepper spray in Freedom Plaza. Whether Bush boosters or bashers, they returned home Sunday with head colds and stories to tell.

“It was life-changing,” said Rachel Lopez, a Weinberg sophomore. The Bush inauguration was Lopez’s first major demonstration, and she said she felt powerless “seeing injustice in front of your face and not being able to do anything about it except hold a sign.”

She said it was historic but disturbing.

“I got told to go back to my own country,” Lopez said. She said protesters and Bush supporters yelled at each other all day.

“They definitely did not want us there,” she said.

Lopez said there was a dramatic divide between fur coat- and cowboy boot-wearing Bush supporters and sign-waving, chanting demonstrators.

Division was evident even among protesters, students said.

“It was a diverse crowd,” said Desiree Evans, a Medill sophomore and veteran protester. She said the inauguration’s mainstream appeal drew older, less militant protesters to join the young activists who formed the core of recent mass demonstrations.

Fellow protest veteran Peter Micek, a Medill sophomore, agreed. Compared with April’s protests of the International Monetary Fund, he said, the inauguration was tame.

“It was a bit more fun and good-natured,” he said. “You really had to work for it if you wanted to get arrested.”

NU Republicans who traveled in support of Bush agreed.

“The police contained (the protesters) pretty well — they didn’t disrupt the magnificence of the event,” said Chris Mohr, former president of College Republicans.

But despite the relative restraint of the police and the calm of the protesters, Micek said the day was not free of violence.

He and other NU protesters were gathered in Freedom Plaza, a hub of protest activity, when a crowd took down prominently placed military flags and replaced them with an upside down American flag and a black anarchist flag.

Riot police then stormed the plaza, “dragging people away and pushing people down,” he said.

“The most vivid memory I have is an undercover police officer pepper spraying people,” Micek said. “I almost got hit.”

Though Bush supporters came with inauguration tickets in hand, they said their experiences were not without disruption.

Weinberg sophomore Tracie Gibler said that although the protesters were vocal, they were less offensive than Republicans who booed loudly when outgoing President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton were introduced.

“I thought that was horrible,” she said.

Mohr, a Weinberg senior, said he was more angry with the protesters “trying to intimidate the people who were there to enjoy the inauguration.”

But, he said, “we didn’t need to yell back at the protesters — we got our revenge in the election.”

Mohr and Gibler both said that although they were impressed with the historical nature of the event, they were somewhat underwhelmed by the inauguration itself.

“It was very subdued — not at all like a carnival,” said Gibler, who added that she was always conscious of Secret Service sharpshooters perched on every rooftop.

Evans and Micek, organizers of Northwestern Students Against Sweatshops, cited the opportunity to network and socialize with other activists as a highlight of the weekend. They caravaned to Washington with students from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and spent Friday night at the Legal Collective, a law firm for protesters.

After the demonstrations Saturday, NU protesters spent the night partying with sweatshop activists from across the country.

Micek said he and other NU students plan to protest at a free trade summit in Quebec in April.