DIED. S.I. Hayakawa, 85, outspoken semantics professor who, while acting president of San Francisco State College in 1968, faced down rioting students and became a hero to conservatives; in Greenbrae, Calif. In 1941 Hayakawa published Language in Action, a best-selling introduction to semantics. Although sympathetic to demands for a black-studies department at San Francisco State in 1968, Hayakawa defeated protesters' attempts to close the campus. Sporting his trademark tam-o'-shanter, he climbed atop the demonstrators' sound truck and ripped out the wiring of their loudspeaker. As Republican Senator from California from 1977 to 1983, Hayakawa advocated a lower entry-level minimum wage for teenagers, but was known mostly for dozing through briefings. He later led the movement to establish English as the official language of the U.S.