From the archives of April 24, 1968: The following is part of a web-only series featuring select articles from the Spectator during the spring of 1968 [1]. Read the next article in this series here: Protestors Roam Offices in Low [2].

Never before have a group of students so forcefully challenged the administration of Columbia University.

Vice President David B. Truman called the events of yesterday a matter of life or death for the University. "It is a challenge to whether the University will be conducted in an orderly manner or wether it will be torn apart," the vice president said last night.

Students forced administrators to lock Low Library; they tore down the fence around the new gymnasium and fought with New York City policemen; and finally, they kept the acting dean of Columbia College--perhaps the man least responsible in the administration for the policies they are protesting--a hostage in his own office overnight.

Many things which happened yesterday--and some things which didn't happen--are significant and deserve analyzing. At no point during the day did violence erupt among students as it did last year when the presence of recruiters from the United States Marine Corps sparked a bitter clash between two student factions.

This time, with some forewarning of the possibility of violence, administrators acted to prevent a recurrence of last year's incident. Vice President Truman telephoned members of the faculty Monday night and asked them to do what they could to head off violence. Low Library, the original target of the demonstration, was closed, thereby eliminating the opportunity for students of opposing sides to be crowded together into narrow hallways.

Fortunately, the SDS-led demonstrators and the pickets organized by Students for a Free Campus never really came into physical contact with each other. Yet, what began yesterday has not ended. While the protesters remain crowded inside Hamilton Hall, the growing sentiment among the opposing faction outside the building tends closer to violent reprisal.

Although those sitting-in insisted Dean Coleman would not be permitted to leave, the Dean wisely never tested the issue. An attempt by him to leave Hamilton would almost certainly have provoked fighting.

Yesterday's events showed also that construction of the new gym in Morningside Park is by no means a dead issue despite repeated assertions from the administration that construction is a fait accompli. Black student leaders remained in the forefront of the demonstrations, along with leaders of SDS, and as word spread of the activities at Columbia throughout the city, militants from outside the University became involved.

The arrival of these militants raises another serious problem for the University: whether to call in city police to empty Hamilton Hall. Since they are taking part in an illegal demonstration inside a University building, the black leaders are trespassing on Columbia property. The University could attempt to have them removed by police on these grounds.

Any violence which might erupt from such a confrontation with police could have repercussions far beyond the ivy-covered walls of the University.

The Student Afro-American Society, which has preferred to remain out of the limelight until now, will apparently become a more visible and more potent student force on campus. At the same time, however, both SAS and SDS face more seriously than ever the threat of being disbanded by University authorities for their actions yesterday.

Although officials would not be pinned down on what discipline would be taken, Vice President Truman was emphatic in ruling an amnesty for the demonstrators "out of the question."

After the Low Library demonstration against the Institute for Defense Analyses he said that action against SDS as a whole was not "outside the realm of possibility."

Another result of the day's happenings will certainly have to be a clarification of President Kirk's memorandum banning indoor demonstrations and how that ruling will be enforced. Some demonstrations earlier in the year the University refused to recognize as demonstrations; others, it said, did not violate the memorandum. No one questions the fact that what took place yesterday is the most flagrant violation yet.

Disciplinary action against the protesters at this point seems inevitable, and administration officials are still adamant in refusing to grant open hearings. Yet such an act will certainly be viewed in the outside world as political reprisal. The administration is, indeed, faced with its greatest challenge from the voices of student power in the history of the school.