1968 Columbia University protests
In 1968, a series of protests at Columbia University in New York City were one among the various student demonstrations that occurred around the globe in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students discovered links between the university and the institutional apparatus supporting the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War, as well as their concern over an allegedly segregated gymnasium to be constructed in the nearby Morningside Park. The protests led to student occupations of Hamilton Hall and many university buildings, starting with Hamilton Hall, and the eventual violent removal of protesters by the New York City Police Department.
The protests were successful in getting university's administration to scrap the gymnasium project in Morningside Park and disaffiliate from the Institute for Defense Analyses, a military research corporation supporting the US invasion of Vietnam. The Cox Commission, organized at the behest of the executive committee of the Faculty to investigate the protests, found in its report published later that year that channels of communication between the university's administration, faculty, and students were ineffective or lacking, and supported the idea of establishing a representative university senate.
Background
Discovery of IDA documents
A former Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society activist named Bob Feldman claimed in 2022 to have discovered documents from early March 1967, in the International Law Library detailing Columbia's institutional affiliation with the Institute for Defense Analyses, a weapons research think tank affiliated with the United States Department of Defense. The nature of the association had not been, to that point, publicly announced by the university.Prior to March 1967, the IDA had rarely been mentioned in the U.S. media or in the left, underground or campus press. A few magazine articles on the IDA had appeared between 1956 and 1967 and the IDA had been mentioned in a few books for academic specialists published by university presses. The RAND Corporation, not the Institute for Defense Analyses, was the military-oriented think tank that had received most of the publicity prior to March 1967. But after Feldman's name appeared in some leftist publications in reference to the Columbia-IDA revelation, the FBI opened a file on him and started to investigate, according to Feldman's declassified FBI files.
The discovery of the IDA documents touched off a Columbia SDS anti-war campaign between April 1967 and April 1968, which demanded the Columbia University administration resign its institutional membership in the Institute for Defense Analyses. Following a peaceful demonstration inside the Low Library administration building on March 27, 1968, the Columbia Administration placed on probation six anti-war Columbia student activists, who were collectively nicknamed "The IDA Six," for violating its ban on indoor demonstrations.
Morningside Park gymnasium
Columbia's plan to construct what activists described as a segregated gymnasium in city-owned Morningside Park fueled anger among the nearby Harlem community. Opposition began in 1965, during the mayoral campaign of John Lindsay, who opposed the project. By 1967, community opposition had become more militant. One of the causes for dispute was the gym's proposed design. Due to the topography of the area, Columbia's campus at Morningside Heights to the west was more than above the adjacent neighborhood of Harlem to the east. The proposed design would have an upper level to be used as a Columbia gym, and a lower level to be used as a community center.By 1968, concerned students and community members saw the planned separate east and west entrances as an attempt to circumvent the Civil Rights Act of 1964, then a recent federal law that banned racially segregated facilities. In addition, others were concerned with the appropriation of land from a public park. Harlem activists opposed the construction because, despite being on public land and a park, Harlem residents would get only limited access to the facility. It was for these reasons that the project was labelled by some as "Gym Crow".
Since 1958 the university had evicted more than seven thousand Harlem residents from Columbia-controlled properties—85 percent of whom were African American or Puerto Rican. Many Harlem residents paid rent to the university.
Black students at a 40th anniversary event said their bitterness evolved from discrimination, that unlike white students their identifications were constantly checked, and that black women were told not to register for difficult courses. A "stacking system" that put all the former black football players in the same position was described.
Protests
Occupation of Hamilton Hall
The first protest occurred in March 1968, eight days before the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. In response to Columbia's attempts to suppress anti-IDA student protests on its campus, and the university's plans for the Morningside Park gymnasium, which activists viewed as circumventing anti-segregation laws, Columbia SDS activists and Columbia's Student Afro Society held a second, confrontational demonstration on April 23, 1968, at the university sundial. After the protest, Columbia and Barnard students were prevented from protesting inside Low Library by Columbia security guards. Most of the student protesters marched down to the Columbia gymnasium construction site in Morningside Park, attempted to stop construction of the gymnasium and began to struggle with the New York City Police officers who were guarding the construction site. The NYPD arrested one protester at the gym site. The SAS and SDS students then left the gym site at Morningside Park and returned to Columbia's campus, where they took over Hamilton Hall, a building housing both classrooms and the offices of the Columbia College Administration.Activist separation
The morning after the initial takeover of Hamilton Hall, the 60 African-American students involved with the protest asked the predominantly white SDS students to leave. The SAS decision to separate themselves from SDS came as a surprise to the latter group's members. SAS wanted autonomy in what they were doing at that point in the protest, because their goals and methods diverged in significant ways from SDS.While both the SAS and the SDS shared the goal of preventing the construction of the new gymnasium, the two groups held different agendas. The overarching goal of the SDS extended beyond the single issue of halting the construction of the gym. SDS wanted to mobilize the student population of Columbia to confront the university's support of the Vietnam War, while the SAS was primarily interested in stopping the university's encroachment of Harlem, through the construction of the gym.
It was of great importance to SAS that there was no destruction of files and personal property in faculty and administrative offices in Hamilton Hall, which would have reinforced negative stereotypes of black protesters destroying property. Having sole occupancy of Hamilton Hall allowed SAS to avoid any potential conflict with SDS about destruction of university property, as well as with other issues. Thus, the members of the SAS requested that the white students begin their own, separate protest so that the black students could put all of their focus into preventing the construction of the gym. The African-American students said that the European-American students could not understand the protest of the gymnasium as deeply, as its architectural plans were developed in a segregationist fashion. In addition, the African-American students knew that police would not be as violent against a group of black students, to prevent riots due to the fact that Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed three weeks prior.
What began as a unified effort would soon become a standoff between black students and white students as the SAS began to meet separately from other protesters and excluding whites, with each group occupying a separate side of the building. There was minimal communication between the SDS and SAS, which led to decreased solidarity between the two groups. This separation of the SDS and SAS, with each using different tactics to accomplish its goals, was consistent with the student movement across the country.
The SDS and the SAS soon made an agreement to separate white and black demonstrators. Soon after, the white students left Hamilton Hall and moved to Low Library, which housed the President's office. Over the next few days, the University President's office in Low Library and three other buildings, including the School of Architecture, were also occupied by the student protesters. Not all occupiers were members of the university community. Many outside participants joined the protest, including students from other colleges.
In separating themselves from the white protesters early in the demonstration, the black protesters forced Columbia to address the issue of race. Falling so soon after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., which had caused riots in the black neighborhoods surrounding the university, the administrators were cautious in dealing with the demonstrators of the SAS. Officials feared that any use of force could incite riots in the neighboring Harlem community. Realizing this, the occupants of Hamilton Hall encouraged neighboring African-Americans to come to the campus and "recruited famous black militants to speak at their rallies". The student-community alliance that forged between students of the SAS and Harlem residents led to widespread growth in white support for the cause.
A photo of David Shapiro wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigar in Columbia President Grayson L. Kirk's office was published in the media. Mark Rudd announced that acting dean Henry S. Coleman would be held hostage until the group's demands were met. Though he was not in his office when the takeover was initiated, Coleman made his way into the building past protesters, went into his office and stated that "I have no control over the demands you are making, but I have no intention of meeting any demand under a situation such as this." Along with College administrators William Kahn and Dan Carlinsky, Coleman was detained as a hostage in his office as furniture was placed to keep him from leaving. He was provided with food and was released 24 hours later, with The New York Times describing his departure from the siege as "showing no sign that he had been unsettled by the experience"