The Columbia Spectator.
columbiaspectator.com.
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Published on March 28, 2003
Charlie Homans
Spectator Senior Staff Writer
Although they failed in their goal of meeting with Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger, student anti-war activists were able to meet with high level administration officials in Low Library yesterday afternoon.
At noon on Thursday, approximately 50 students gathered at the sundial on College Walk and marched towards Low Library with the intention of delivering to Bollinger a letter detailing three demands issued on behalf of the "students of Columbia University."
After being denied entrance to Low Library by security officers, the group was ultimately allowed to send a delegation of seven representatives to present their list of three demands to Senior Executive Vice President Robert Kasdin. According to Lisa Hogarty, the vice president for student services, Bollinger was in Washington, D.C. at the time preparing for the oral arguments of his affirmative action case to the Supreme Court, which begins on April 1.
The letter was the product of a late-night Wednesday meeting of students concerned about the University's position in relation to the war in Iraq. Students gathered in Alfred Lerner Hall's Café 212 after the faculty teach-in on Wednesday night in the Low Rotunda.
"After the teach-in," said anti-war activist John Laudenberger, CC '03, "people who were really concerned with [Columbia's relation to the war in Iraq], some of whom had been working with the [Columbia] Anti-War Coalition and some of whom had opted not to for specific reasons, came together on this. We want to take our position as students of Columbia University because we know that we are directly involved in this war, and we're trying to take care of that."
The students, who described themselves as "an ad-hoc coalition" rather than an official organization, requested in the letter first "that President Lee C. Bollinger, on behalf of the administration, issue a statement to the community opposing war"; second "that the University, as an educational institution, issue a statement opposing the release of any international student's private information to government agencies"; and third "that the University disclose its ties to the military through contracts, research, and grants, and that it divest from corporations profiting from the manufacture and sale of arms."
At approximately 12:30 p.m., the demonstrators marched up the steps of Low Library through an afternoon crowd that greeted them with both cheers and insults. The students were met by security officers, led by Jeremiah Stoldt, the director of special projects for facilities services, who promptly bolted the front entrance to the building.
Garland English, CC '04, and Jacob McKean, CC '06, attempted to negotiate entrance to the building with security. "We are not sponsored by any group; this [demonstration] is entirely autonomous," McKean told Stoldt, referring to Stoldt's statement that organized groups of students could not enter Low without an appointment. "There is no reason why, as students of the university, we can't go into our own building."
"I think you have to use the definition of organized group a little more broadly [in these circumstances]," Vice President for Facilities Mark Burstein said later that day. At the time, Stoldt only cited "safety and security concerns," but confusingly stated, "we're not preventing you from getting into the building," while standing in front of the locked doors.
Around 1:00 p.m., Kasdin arrived and told demonstrators that a meeting in Low would not be possible, suggesting instead that the gathering take place in front of the building or in a classroom. A compromise was brokered, however, by Barnard political science professor Peter Juviler, who emerged from amidst the student demonstrators and called attention to the importance of dealing with protests better than in 1968 prior to the student strike and building occupations. Juviler warned against not repeating mistakes he suggested "contributed to the radicalization of [that] protest, and had other consequences."
"This is serious for [the students]," Juviler said. "They probably have relatives who are over there [in Iraq], and we all feel for everyone involved. We're all one community; we're still in the community, and you are, too."
On account of what he described later as a change in the general tone of the situation following Juviler's statements, Kasdin agreed to meet with seven delegates in the Trustees Room in 212 Low. To speak on their behalf, the demonstrators selected McKean, English, Jonah Birch, CC '05, Lauren Schwartz, BC '04, Visnja Vujica, BC '06, Philip Cartelli, CC '06, and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences student Ayca Cubukcu.
University Chaplain Jewelnel Davis volunteered to moderate the discussion, which lasted until shortly after 2 p.m. Some delegates maintained the aggressive stance that had characterized the march to Low. Birch argued that Kasdin's suggested channels of communication such as the University Senate were not useful, and cited lasting changes made in the wake of the 1968 student strikes.
Cubukcu was similarly adamant, arguing that it is the administration's responsibility to reflect the opinions of a campus.
Cubukcu claimed that the student body is predominantly opposed to the war in Iraq, although a Spectator poll today suggests that the campus is almost perfectly split between students who oppose the war and students who support it.
"Given that most of this campus is anti-war," Cubukcu said, "and that the administration is accountable to that campus, I think it is your duty to issue an anti-war statement."
Others were more diplomatic. McKean cited the limitations of the Socially Responsible Investing Committee, the official committee for change in investment issues, noting the small number of SRI recommendations that are actually passed by the trustees of the university. McKean said that the lengthy time scale of action needed was unrealistic in light of pressing wartime issues. In response to Kasdin's statement that "the university is politically independent" and was not in a position to make a statement on the war, McKean argued that "at this time the university has taken an overt pro-war stance in its actions by investing tens of millions of dollars in companies that are directly profiting from the war in Iraq."
"If you were to cede to this [third] demand, you would essentially be accomplishing neutrality," he said.
Kasdin chose not to respond positively or negatively to the demonstrators' first two demands, saying that he would discuss them with Bollinger as soon as possible without issuing a specific deadline. He referred the delegates to the letter from Provost Jonathan Cole to the student body on March 14, 2002, which he said addressed many of the demonstrators' concerns regarding the demand about foreign students. In the letter, Cole said that "we want to continue to help the nation during this difficult time--and we will. But we will not do so by sacrificing the individual rights of our faculty and students."
Anisa George/CDS
After Wednesday's teach-in, a group of students gathered in Low and decided to march on Bollinger's office, which they did yesterday.
"International students at Columbia are living with enormous pressure," Kasdin said. "We take these issues seriously, not because you place them as demands, but because they are real concerns for our community of international students and faculty."
Regarding the third demand, Kasdin told the delegates to take the matter of divestment up with the SRI Committee.
"These are important issues," Kasdin said later that day. "and I'm glad that people are acting passionately."
But Kasdin maintained that the best way to address such concerns was to present them to the administration in a less confrontational manner, and reiterated the importance of the University itself remaining neutral. "I am wary of any activities that could have a chilling affect on academic freedom at Columbia," he said. "As a community, we must continue to foster an atmosphere in which all views can be expressed safely and held up to examination."
According to Burstein, the main entrance to Low Library remained locked until 3:30 PM, a decision which he defended. "The students wanted to have a conversation with the senior members of the administration," he said, "and we wanted to provide an appropriate space for that to happen. Sometimes a group of students just going in and sitting in Low isn't the most useful way to promote that kind of conversation."
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