University of Virginia Library

Responsibility At Columbia

Following the "bust" last week in which
New York City policemen invaded and
cleared out five Columbia University administration
buildings held by demonstrating
students, sympathy among the student body
of Columbia in general and even among its
faculty members has turned largely in favor
of the protesters.

The demonstrating students, spear-headed
by the Students for Democratic Society,
the Student Afro-American Society, and the
Student Strike Coordinating Committee,
took over the Morningside Heights campus'
buildings initially in protest against the construction
of a university gymnasium affecting
a Harlem neighborhood and against Columbia's
relations with the Institute for Defense
Analyses, a private organization conducting
secret research for the government.

The demonstrators at first received little
support for their actions from their student
colleagues and were jeered and threatened
as they looked down from the windows
of their newly-captured offices. Revolted by
the retaliatory police tactics, however, and
even further enraged by President Grayson
Kirk's refusal to acknowledge the violence
demonstrated in the raid, Columbia professors
have now united with a large majority
of the school's student body in condemning
the policies of the administration.

As one Columbia graduate student said,
"I at first did not support the strike...
Now I'm firmly in favor of it. Basically
what it comes down to is that neither the
faculty nor the students have any power
whatsoever." A sophomore noted, "About
one-third of the student body is wavering in
the middle ground, just as I am. But now
'in the middle ground' means 'for
the strike.' "

The tactics of the police are being cited
on the campus as another example of an
alleged "conspiracy" between colleges, government,
and industry in the United States
today.

Reports indicate, and even New York's
Mayor John Lindsay has declared, that the
invasion of the college buildings by the policemen
was characterized by "excessive force"
and unnecessary violence. Uninvolved professors
and students standing outside the
buildings were treated with the same roughness
as were the protesters within.

However, the fact that the situation was
handled in this manner does not justify
the initial criminal actions of the demonstrators.
Columbia faculty members and students
alike shift the blame for the "unjust"
action taken against the demonstrators on
Mr. Kirk's administration, yet they seek to
absolve the protesters from any responsibility
in the disruption by asking that they be
made immune from any disciplinary action.

The protesters who seized the administration
buildings vandalized Mr. Kirk's offices,
urinating in waste baskets, burning holes
in rugs, drinking the president's brandy,
and rifling his files. They have tried to make
a mockery of Mr. Kirk's position and are
now humiliating him personally by publishing
private letters stolen from his files.

The protesters ask for a greater voice in
the administration of their university, yet
they have conducted themselves in a manner
unworthy of the responsibility they demand.
Just yesterday, for example, leaders of the
three organizations who lead the demonstration
failed to meet with Professor Archibald
Cox's committee, formed to study the causes
of the student strike, to present their arguments,
as they were invited to do. Moreover,
they are threatening to boycott meetings
with the committee entirely.

The students at Columbia may have
genuine conflicts with the school's administration
which must be resolved. In this
time of greater academic freedom students
should have a larger voice in the conduct of
their universities' affairs. But the "power"
which they hold must be a responsible one.
Students at Columbia must accept their
responsibility in the disruption of their
university's life if they want to assume a
larger role in influencing it.

S. M. L.