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Seventy-seven years of editorial freedom
Columbia: The seven days'
war
#i
Edited and Managed by Students
under authority of Board in Cc
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.
s of the University of Michigan
ontrol of Student Publications.
News Phone: 764-0552
p ress the individual opinions of staff writers
be noted in all reprints.
NIGHT EDITOR: MARCIA ABRAMSON
Editorials printed in The
or the
THURSDAY, MAY 9, 1968
Michigan Daily ex
editors. This mustr
'U' housing rules
should not a prison make
THE ELIMINATION of compulsory
dormitory residence for all underclass-
men is the logical culmination of this
semester's "hour power" battle and the
issue provides an opportunity, for the
Regents to take an enlightened position
on their own without being forced to
respond to student pressure.
Vice President for Student Affairs
Richard L. Cutler is expected to present
to the May Regents meeting reports on
the economics and educational relevance
of making livingg in residence halls vol-
untary beginning in August, 1969.
There is only one course for Cutler to
recommend in his report. The economics,
academic and social viability of volun-
tary dormitory residency has been docu-
mented since 1961 and is unquestionable.
It is to the credit of the Office of
University Housing that they have
brought the issue to the Regents in ad-
vance of student opinion on the subject.
This is a decided improvement over the
intransigent position the Housing Office
took on the question of eliminating
women's hours last semester.
THERE ARE many indications that
Director of University Housing John
Feldkamp is correct in predicting that
voluntary dormitory living for all will
not mean a mass exodus.
After Joint Judiciary Council made
enforcement of non-student rules im-
possible last semester, the Regents voted
to put regulation of hours and visitation
policy under the care of the dormitory
houses making University residence halls
a better draw for students who would
not have to live in them now under the
new regulations.
With the power to determine demo-
cratically the conditions of their own
environment-how they will dress, when
they will come in, when they will receive
visitors of the opposite sex-students in
the residence, halls already have a place
to live far more conducive to maturation
than they had 'a year ago.
Up to now dormitories have in general
failed to cultivate the feelings of com-
mnunity which is potentially their strong-
est selling point because of the negative
feelings of those students who regard
forced dormitory residency as something
akin to imprisonment.
IN ADDITION to making the dormitories
a more desirable place to live, volun-
tary dorm residence should provide the
valuable spinoff of putting University
Housing in complete competition with
Ann Arbor private housing. To compete
with the "plush" apartments ,of Ann
Arbor, residence halls will be forced to
improve on their current fairly sterile
image.
It is safe to predict that voluntary
residence in the dorms will produce
more University living units with special
prcgrams like Pilot Program or Honors
Housing. It is highly likely that there
will be a greater.shift to dormitories with
special images like South Quad's exclu-
sively upper class Kelsey House. There
will probably also be more emphasis on
special conveniences such as better bus
service to North Campus and more flex-
ible eating schedules.-
TpHE SPECIAL problems of the typical
entering freshman provide even bet-
ter argument that residence would re-
main economically sound.
At best the enteringfreshman would
receive a plethora of glossy brochures
from Ann Arbor landlords and University
Greeks while the University residence
halls would be giving him a dependable
and' thorough look at his prospective
home during orientation.
It takes a certain amount of experience
to deal with the idiocyncracies of Ann
Arbor apartments - 12-month leases,
damage deposits, and roommates. Most
freshmen would recognize that and wait
until they had had a year or so to study
apartment living.
THE ARGUMENT for the continuing
use of voluntary residence halls is
supported by the experience of the Uni-
versity of California at Berkeley as well
as by the number of University upper-
classmen living in our dorms.
.A S2 --e~~nnr.,gin - - ' aTT nl[
ple just don't want to cook for them-
selves.
EVEN IF THERE were some sort of de-
crease in the number of people desir-
ing to live in the dorms, there is good
reason to believe the University still
would not be hurt financially.
Operating costs for residence halls are
paid by student fees on a yearly basis,
but actual building costs are paid largely
from bonding. Older dorms such as West
Quad and Stockwell have been paid for
for a long time. Part of their income
goes to pay for residence hall expansion
-an expense that has become obsolete
with voluntary residence hall living.
The conversion of part of West Quad
into office space proves that the Uni-
versity could find other uses for any extra
space created by fewer dorm residents.
ALL THE University community sup-
posedly operates on the assumption
that all expenditures should be directed
so as to produce the best educated stu-
dents possible. If this is indeed true,
voluntary dormitory residence would be
an unquestionably sound educational
investment no matter what the cost in
terms of dollars or administrative incon-
venience.
The sophomore, junior and senior men,
and the junior and senior women who
currently live outside University hous-
ing have maintained for the last two
years scholastic averages higher than
overall residence hall averages.
ACADEMIC AND social advantages of
voluntary dorm residence transcend
these statistics, however. The more a
student makes his own decisions, the
greater his chances r of developing a
commitment workable in life outside the
University.
Apartment living, particularly for
sophomore women, offers something
closer to this maturing environment than
the current situation as does provision
of a choice of residency for freshmen.
The advantages for social as well as
academic growth that voluntary dorm
residence would provide have been ex-
pounded since the Reed Report was re-
leased in 1961 and must not be ignored.
The Reed Report's studies indicate that
the "element of compulsion" (in resi-
dence hall living), "significantly impedes
the achievement of educational goals.
When the operational changes herein
recommended take place; many students,
perhaps most, will wish to remain in the
residence halls, but the availability of
choice is educationally sound and emo-
tionally important."%
The Report of former University Presi-
dent Harlan Hatcher's Commission on
Student Decision Making released this
semester reiterated this idea in recom-
mending that the University should
move. "as rapidly as its financial com-
mitments permit . . . toward a policy in
which residence hall living is not com-
pulsory for students at any level."
WHEN THE recommendations of such
University commissions have been
ignored in the past, student unrest has
been a logical consequence. Regental ap-
proval of this residence hall proposal
would be an opportunity for the admin-
istration to prove that it puts student
rights and academic excellence above
non-student moralizing about in loco
parentis.
-LUCY KENNEDY
Today Indiana .. .
AMERICAN VOTERS should be delight-
ed that the Indiana primary has fi-
nally drawn to a close. Now the election
itself can finally be settled.
The NBC voter projection analysts can
turn their microphones nationwide. Gal-
lup pollsters can spread to every 100th
house all over the country. Time-Life
writers can at last analyze the style of
national campaigning and get out of
Gary, Indiana.
With only five months to go before
voters select the next President, panic
was spreading over the nation that poll-
sters and primary voters would not be
freed soon enough to predict who would
By STEVE DIAMOND
LiberationNews Service
Last of Three Parts
ON FRIDAY evening, around six
o'clock, the entire ten block
circumference of the campus was
ringed by an enormous number of
NYC policemen. The situation
seemed to have reached an im-
passe with black and white stu-
dents In the buildings refusing to
leave, the cops in position, and
the university dickering with the
faculty, who were not authorized
by the rebel students to speak for
them. It was almost impossible for
the imajority of people, reporters,
and activists alike, to distinguish
the days and hours, one from the
other.
BUT AT AROUND 3:15 a.m.
Saturday morning, Vice Presi-
dent Truman announced that
the university had rescinde the
decision to call in the police and
that school would shut down un-
til Monday. I spent Friday, Sat-
urday and Sunday nights in the
Mathematics Building. It was tru-
ly a beautiful scene, democracy
evolving before 'one's very eyes'.
A large meeting was being held
on the main floor on the question
of the police bust and what to do
when it came.
Mathematics had been billed as
the most "militant white" liber-
ated building. Its main door was
barricaded with heavy steel desks,
chairs, filing cabinets and other
metal and wood items. Mathe-
matics has one wall facing Broad-
way. It is a twenty foot high wall
almost impossible to scale. The
windows on the Broadway side
were blocked with huge sheets of
heavy styrofoam, discovered in
the basement.
"WHAT WE HAVE to decide
now is what is going to be
done in the event of a cop bust.
Are we going to lie down and link
arms, hold out in the building as
long as we can, what are we going
to do?" Tom Hurwitz a tall Co-
lumbia junior, who wears a red
bandana around his forehead,
Apache-style, spoke quietly to the
students. Hurwitz was the head of
the defense committee in Mathe-
matics, and you could tell he had-
n't slept more than four solid
hours since the "thing" began on
Tuesday. But everyone was tired,
no one had really slept. People
raised hands, spoke, and the
whole place seemed divided yet
somehow unified.
THE MAIN FLOOR of Mathe-
matics where the students had
barricaded themselves is a large
Ivorj
By WALTER SHAPIRO
Associate Editorial Director
NOW THAT Columbia Uni-
versity nas begun to fade
from the headlines, defenders
of the students' actions are
starting to appear in greater
numbers. Gone are the shrill
attacks of the New York Times
on "student hoodlumism and
beginning to emerge are the
vague outlines of the eventual
moderate view that the mono-
lithic structure of Columbia
needed a little reform after all.
It has been correctly pointed
out that the actions of the Co-
lumbia studentswere a direct
consequence of the lack of an
e q u i t a b e decision-making
structure. Where students are
effectively thwarted from play-
ing any major role in deter-
mining university policy, it is
inevitable that the only way
they can make their influence
felt is through mass action.
Unfortunately this defense
inadvertently slights the con-
tent of the students' initial
demands for an end to the
construction of a gym in
Morningside Park and the
university's withdrawal from
the Institute for Defense An-
alyses (IDA). The focus on
decision - making processes
gives the false impression
that the ills of Columbia
were only structural deform-
ities and that there were few,
if any, actual maladies.
Content is important here
because embedded in the stu-
dent demands are what can be
best described as the "moral di-
mensions of the problem."
Admittedly it is difficult to
pigeonhole the Columbia situa-
tion into a simple right-wrong,
good-bad dichotomy. But the
very complexity is part of the
reason why one must not ne-
glect underlying "moral" prin-
ciples at Columbia.
As the career of Robert Mc-
Namara attests, it is danger-
ously easy for a fundamentally
"good" man to lose his human-
ity by concentrating exclusively
on the specifics of issues with-
out weighing their underlying
assumptions. And this excessive
concern with the pragmatic is
L-shaped room. In the leg of the
L, the lights were out and if you
looked you could make out sleep-
ing forms, bodies snuggled close.
to other bodies, brown university-
dorm blankets, colorful blankets
brought in from apartments near-
by, and a few sleeping bags.
For many of the kids, this was
the first opportunity for sleep in
three days. The university had
shut down until, Monday, so the
possibility of a police bust would
not materialize again until Sun-
day night. There would always be
another meeting to attend when
you woke up.
Saturday, April 27
I woke up Saturday morning to
find a huge sign over my head
which read "Sarah Lawrence is
Here for the Duration." Sarah
Lawrence? Sure enough, there
were some twenty Sarahloo chicks
spread out around the floor,
mingled in with the Columbia and
Barnard people.
It was pretty funny to think
that only three weeks earlier,
there had been a big hassle with
Linda LeClair at Barnard, 'who
had been "discovered" living with
her boy friend. Here was a com-
munity voting, joking, holding
out against the superstructure; a
community talking, sharing mea-
ger food supplies and co-operat-
ing in night watch. At a defense
committee meeting, several girls
adamantly demanded to be al-
lowed to participate on the night-
watch. Hurwitz calmly explained
that it would be a slight "secur-
ity risk" if a group of "jocks" de-
cided to try to bust in and kick
the sleeping protestors out: they
wouldn't feel intimidated by two
girls on the window sill.
SATURDAY was the day of the
big anti-war demonstration in the
Sheep Meadow of Central Park.
Steve Hallwell of SDS,nrepresent-
ing the Columbia Students, was
the last speaker. When he got to
the podium, he called for people
to march up to Columbia to show
support for the rebel students.
By the time he had finished
speaking, some eight hundred
New York City cops pulled into
the Amsterdam Avenue entrance
to the campus with fifteen patrol
cars, five public buses, and several
vans and paddy wagons. Another
detachment of around three hun-
dred police marched down to the
Jim-Crow-Gym site in Morning-
side Park where the revolution
had begun four days earlier.
Police at Sheep Meadow raced
ahead of the marchers, who were
walking peacefully up the park
drive from the Sheep Meadow at
68th Street to 116th Street. Near
86th Street, police on horses and
in cars blocked tle route of
march. The demo strators de-
toured on to Central Park West
where they were attacked by po-
lice. About 20 were arrested; oth-
ers fled into the park and were
surrounded and beaten.
The press was not there: they
had gone on ahead to 116th Street
to await the parade. The demon-
strators split up into small groups
and about 400 made it to the Co-
lumbia campus, where they were
addressed by Rudd, Halliwell,
Hayden and others. To4e strike
leaders asked them to disperse for
now, but to return to Columbia
when the police tried to break the
strike.
SATURDAY night was cool, but
within the liberated buildings ten-
sion was building up over the
probability of a police bust Sun-
day night. The university admin-
istration was saying that classes
would be held on Monday. A long
meeting was held to discuss the
possibility of modifying the last
and most important demand, am-
nesty for all persons involved in
the demonstrations. Jonathan
Shills, a Columbia senior, favored
a change in the wording so that
a compromise could be reached
and the faculty appeased.
The faculty was not in favor of
a total amnesty, though many of
them sided with the students on
the issue of the gym and the IDA.
Shills proposed a re-wording of
the sixth proposal to go some-
thing like "no suspensions, and no
permaner.t disciplinary probation",
so that if disciplinary probation
were to be imposed it could not
follow a student throughout his
college fcareer, but would be lim-
ited to one or two semesters.
called by the Coalition, consisted
of five to eight hundred athletes,
egged on by several aging alumni
who wanted to see Columbia
brought back to its "senses."
The athletes ringed the area
and threatened anyone who tried
to run the blockade with bodily
harm. It was obvious that the
jocks, who had felt left out since
the takeover began last Tuesday.
wanted to have a "good time,
too." Outside of Low they were
singing football fighting songs,
arms around one another's necks,
beer cans everywhere, determined
to starve out the occupants of the
president's suite.
LATE SUNDAY night the
"white militants" of Mathematics,
which is about one hundred yards
away from Low, decided to rush
the "jock blockade." They met
with little success. It was a mat-
ter of "psychological" concern, not
being able to get food in to Low.
People in other liberated buildings
began to worry that morale would
fall if everyone knew that no food
was getting into Low.
Monday, April 29
Monday morning there was an-
other assault on the blockade.
Two hundred SDS sympathizers
led by Tom Hurwitz and John Ja-
cobs from Mathematics met in a
knock-down drag-out fight with
the protectors of "law and order."
Again they were repelled. No food
had entered Low for over twenty-
four hours except for an apple
tossed through the window.
At three o'clock Monday, two
black brothers from Hamilton/
Malcolm X Hall with around fifty
or so white demonstrators ap-
proached the blockade surround-
ing 'Low Library. The athletes
girded themselves for a charge.
It didn't come. Instead, the food-
bearers began lobbing loaves of
bread, sandwich meats and other
hard goods through the one open
window in Low. After futilely try-
ing to intercept the air-borne
foodstuffs, the jocks began to
threaten the relief detachment
but from out of nowhere came a
line of police.
At first, the counter-demon-
strators cheered, assuming that
the policewould contain the food
throwing radicals, but much to
their surprise, the police, who had
been their compatriots in inrform-
al chats, formed a cordon around
, the "jock blockade" and allowed
the food to be thrown in. The oc-
cupants in Low, rescued at last,
cheered loudly as did those who
were throwing the food from out-
side. The jocks, betrayed by their
own, merely grimaced.
*
A
o;/;
John Jacobs, an SDS leader,
was riled. "No concessions, we are
here to win. If we do not get
total amnesty, all is lost. We' are
winning now, but we must win the
whole war. No concessions." The
whole Mathematics forum ap-
plauded as "j.j." turned and left;
the room. Herhad made his point.
It was all or nothing.
Sunday, April 28
There was enough conservative7
and moderate support for yet an-
other group to form, this one call-
ing itself the "Majority Coalition."
The group had been trying to get
started after it became apparent
that the SDS and Black groups
were "playing for keeps," but their
first decisive action came on Sun-
day when they decided to form a
.blockade of bodies around the
area of Low Library where the
students were holed up in Presi-
dent Kirk's suite'.
They refused to allow anyone
to enter the building (by climb-
ing up the twelve-foot wall) with.
food for the people inside. Med-
ical teams were allowed to go in
and inspect, but no food could
be taken in. The "Vigil" as it was
_1
a - t _ ..
.,. ,,
to wer,
ebony
Harlem
crusades these days. And there
are few who are vitally con-
cerned with the fate of about
two acres of an almost 30 acre
park, now relatively unused
because it is just not safe.
Furthermore the issue of Co-
lumbia's membership in IDA is
only an easily graspable aspect
of the larger issue of Colum-
bia's participation in war re-
search. But IDA itself is one of
the least potent organizations
ever created - kind of an asea-
demic equivalent of the Sub-
versive Activities Control Board
- and any school's withdrawal
will have almost no effect on
the continuation of war re-
search.
So the students at Colum-
bia were undoubtedly guilty
of oversimplifying the issues.
The precise demands raised
at Columbia do not have the
grand appeal of transcendent
moral causes. Many of the
SDS radicals and black mili-
tants in the forefront of the
Columbia demonstrations al-
legedly viewed the struggle
from a revolutionary per-
spective. But as emotionally
and personally insipiring as
the revolutionary vision may
be, believing in the revolu-
tionary potential of this coun-
try is at best a romantic de-
lusion.
But "moral" issues, while
muted by a welter of contradic-
tions, were definitely present at
Columbia.
The Harlem community sur-
rounding Columbia was not
really infuriated over this par-
ticular gym in this particular
park. Rather, the gym issue
symbolized for them the mad-
dening spectacle of the power-
ful white institution on the
Heights jealously guarding its
prerogatives.
Traditionally, the attitude of
Columbia toward its responsi-
bilities to the surrounding com-
munity has been one of legal-
isms and tight calculations.
Columbia never did more for
Harlem than it had to. For ex-
ample, the second gym in
Morningside Park was a very
callously conceived token de-
signed to head off any protests.
frontations. The explosion
over the gym, therefore, can
best be understood as a fail-
ure of the sensitive liberal
calculus.
Defenses for Columbia's in-y
action were always easy to cre-
ate. Of course, the university's
primary aim had to be its edu-
cational ends, and of course
many of these ends demanded
that Columbia fiercely guard
its legal prerogatives, such as
the right granted by the city to
build the gym in the park.
Furthermore the maintenance
of quality education is not an
uphill struggle for the "Mother
of State Universities" alone, it
has become a severe problem
for the slightly shabby mem-
bers of the Ivy League as well.
The "moral" outrage of
the students and members of
the black community was di-
rected precisely at Columbia's
own calculating moral reti-
cence on the problems of the
neighborhood. The issue was
not one of a gym, but one of
the legalistic liberal attitude
toward our racial problems.
This attitude exudes bene-
ficence after its own funda-
m e n t a 1 prerogatives and
needs are completely satis-
fied, but until satiated it will
fight any intrusion, any ob-
jection, with all the institu-
tional fury it can muster.
This institutional potency
should not be underestimated.
Columbia has far from incon-
siderable influence in New
York's citadels of political and
financial power. And the exist-
ence of these powerful friends
of Columbia help explain why
the university never lost a ma-
jor battle until this year's
memorable seven days in April.
The point of the other prong
of the students' attack was an-
other "moral" issue. And this
was the entire issue of war re-
search.
Our society has been scarred
and calloused by the way we
have institutionalized the nu-
clear age and the accompany-
ing increase in defense tech-
nology. Conveniently, the col-
lective horror became muted
and finally almost died away.
Were it not for the all-en-
.zt.....n ni.
of weapons of destruction for
profit is appalling, but when
this sort of endeavor is en-
gaged in and encouraged by
leading educational institu-
tions, the result can only be
politely described as "nause-
ating." And it is this pro-
found "moral" disgust which
is the real issue hidden be-
hind the furor over IDA.
It was this "moral" dimen-
sion of the "war research" is-
sue which became lost here at
the University during the stu-
dent referenda last semester.
For throughout the campaign,
the emphasis was on "letting
the students decide" and not on
the need for moral decisions.
To a large degree the Univer-
sity's referenda appeared to be
merely another battlefront over
"student power" and the .griev-
ances - classified research and
membership in IDA - seemed
contrived in the same manner
as the "draft referenda" which
highlighted the University's
major student movement in
1966.
In the referenda campaign,
the emphasis unfortunately
fell on the abstract issue of
"classified research," and the
arguments were conducted on
the abstract level of the uni-
versity as the domain of free
inquiry.
Discarding the stalking horse
of IDA used here and at Co-
lumbia and dropping the eu-
phemism of "classified re-
search" employed here, war re-
search must be challenged as
something morally unpalatable
because its ultimate end can
only lie in the destruction of
more human lives.
The actions of the students
at Columbia should be support-
ed from a broader perspective
than the lack - intolerable as
it may be - of an adequate de-
cision-making process. For the
dead-end reached with the fail-
ure of the referenda here last
March should remind one of
the profound limitations of fo-
cusing on decision-making pro-
cesses.
Rather the actions of the
students at Columbia must
also be supported because of
the moral vision - implicit
'A"Ar cta %Q ff -- n.-
nature. But institutional actions
premised on a moral void are a
permanent disfigurement.
The actions of students who
possess some sort of moral vi-
sion can only be encouraged in
a nation whose foreign policy
currently consists of banrupt
pragmatism carried to unbe-
lievable excess.
The ends of this sort of pro-
test should be both the "ideal"
university and the "moral"
university. And as utopian as
they sound, both visions have a
very real practical importance.
As mass education continues
unabated, the emphasis on the
"ideal" university can only
serve as a spur to academic ex-
cellence of the sort which fos-
ters meaningful learning by the
students.
As the political influence of
the individual decreases and
the importance of institutions
increases, a "moral" university
which can attempt to influence
public policy through non-par-
ticipation in "immoral" proj-
ects must become the keeper of
the nation's conscience.
Free from many of the
prejudices of the larger so-
ciety and more flexible than
most institutions, universities
must be citadels of "moral"
policies, and the fierce oppo-
nents of sucheinstitutional-
ized "evils" as racism and the
warfare state.
It is this factor which has
been lost in making men like
Columbia President Grayson
Kirk major enemies. It is not
that they are any more re-
sponsible than anyone else -
and in many ways they are less
so - for the sins of the larger
society.
Rather they must be opposed
because the institutions they
champion have the capacity to
influence the nation and to
serve in the vanguard of those
wanting to add a ,deeply lack-
ing "moral" dimension to both
our domestic and our interna-
tional policies.
The major lesson of Colum-
bia does not lie in the care-
fully explored realm of deci-
sion-making. Rather the moral
of the Columbia uprising is that
universities cannot continue to
acnuiesce in the evils of society
4
*
*