Student Activism

Student activism is an art form that signals an urgent, heartfelt need to communicate the empathy felt about an issue at hand. That is what I believe I took part in back in 1968, and it is what I see in the student activists today.

It is past time for the University not only to forgive but also to embrace those who took a stand 40 years ago—a stand against Columbia’s ties to a military think tank that did research for the Vietnam War effort and a stand against the University’s land grab in Morningside Park.

One of the dangers of looking back so lovingly on my time at Columbia is that I may isolate the efforts into particular outbursts or spectacles of energy, when in fact these movements were developed with enduring care and patience by many people over long periods of time.

Columbia activists like myself who do not stick within the bounds of establishment politics are often accused of being nostalgic for 1968.

The organized antiwar movement is in terrible shape—fragmented, demoralized, and without forward momentum. This description applies to the Columbia movement as well as to the wider U.S. movement—and those of us who want to stop the war need to figure out what’s wrong as a way to start figuring out what can be done to fix it.

A few weeks ago I traveled all the way to JFK just to get a glimpse of Saida and Hassan’s first few minutes in America.

Organizers expect at least 200 students to participate in a walkout and rally at noon today to support the Jena Six and to protest what they call an atmosphere of intolerance at Columbia reflected by an incident including the racist graffiti found last week in an International Affairs Building restroom.