Lyon made a number of progressive decisions relating to civil rights, including supporting Japanese-American students during internment and establishing an exchange program with historically black Fisk University in Tennessee in 1952. He also ended the gender segregation of Pomona's residential life, first with the opening of Frary Dining Hall (then part of the men's campus) to women beginning in 1957 and later with the introduction of co-educational housing in 1968. However, he wavered when it came to some of the more radical student protests against the Vietnam War, and permitted Air Force recruiters to come to campus in 1967. Pomona's previously conservative student body quickly liberalized during this era, and its ethnic diversity also began to increase. In 1969, a bomb exploded at Carnegie Hall, permanently injuring a secretary; no culprit was ever identified.